In Situ Hydrothermal Synthesis of ZnS/TiO2 Nanofibers S-Scheme Heterojunction for Enhanced Photocatalytic H2 Evolution

Photocatalysts with step-scheme (S-scheme) heterojunctions exhibit huge potential in hydrogen evolution via photocatalytic water splitting, which is regarded as a promising technology to solve the energy crisis and environmental issues. In this work, S-scheme heterojunction photocatalysts are constructed by in situ depositing ZnS nanoparticles on TiO2 nanofibers via hydrothermal method. A highly improved photocatalytic H-2 evolution rate is achieved for the ZnS/TiO2 heterojunction as compared to the mono-component ZnS and TiO2. Remarkably, the TiO2/ZnS-5 (TZ-5) sample possesses the highest H-2 evolution rate of 5503.8 mu mol g(-1) h(-1), which is 4.8 times of ZnS and 38.8 times of TiO2, respectively. The observed photocatalytic performance improvement is mainly attributed to the construction of an S-scheme heterojunction, which results in the fast separation of the photogenerated e(-)-h(+) pairs and enhanced redox capacity of the system. This work might provide inspirations and designing references for developing high-performance S-scheme heterojunction photocatalysts.

Automated summary

In this study, S-scheme heterojunction photocatalysts were constructed by depositing ZnS nanoparticles on TiO2 nanofibers. The photocatalytic H2 evolution rate was significantly improved compared to mono-component ZnS and TiO2. The improved performance is mainly attributed to the fast separation of photoexcited charge carriers and enhanced redox capacity of the system.