Construction of Hierarchical Hollow Co9S8/ZnIn2S4 Tubular Heterostructures for Highly Efficient Solar Energy Conversion and Environmental Remediation

Visible-light-responsive hierarchical Co9S8/ZnIn2S4 tubular heterostructures are fabricated by growing 2D ZnIn2S4 nanosheets on 1D hollow Co9S8 nanotubes. This design combines two photoresponsive sulfide semiconductors in a stable heterojunction with a hierarchical hollow tubular structure, improving visible-light absorption, yielding a large surface area, exposing sufficient catalytically active sites, and promoting the separation and migration of photogenerated charges. The hierarchical nanotubes exhibit excellent photocatalytic H-2 evolution and Cr-VI reduction efficiency. Under visible-light illumination, the optimized Co9S8/ZnIn2S4 heterostructure provides a remarkable H-2 generation rate of 9039 mu mol h(-1) g(-1) without the use of any co-catalysts and Cr-VI is completely reduced in 45 min. The Co9S8/ZnIn2S4 heterostructure is stable after multiple photocatalytic cycles.