Shining light on ZnIn2S4 photocatalysts: Promotional effects of surface and heterostructure engineering toward artificial photosynthesis

The gradual depletion of fossil fuel reserves that contribute to similar to 85% of global energy production and release of toxic effluents urges the transformation toward renewable fuels. Thus, the sustainable utilization of sunlight for water splitting and CO2 reduction with heterogeneous photocatalysts has come to light. As a semiconductor photocatalyst, ZnIn2S4 has hit the limelight owing to its narrow bandgap and visible-light-responsive properties. However, the limitations of ZnIn2S4 include limited active sites, fast charge-carrier recombination, and low photoconversion efficiency. Beginning from the fundamental photocatalytic mechanism, this review then provides in-depth insights into several modification strategies of ZnIn2S4, extending from defect engineering, facet engineering, cocatalyst loading to junction engineering, enabling the synergistic construction of high-performance ZnIn2S4 -based systems. Subsequently, the structure-performance relation of ZnIn2S4 -based photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution (HER), overall water splitting (OWS), and CO2 reduction applications in the last 4 years will be discussed and concluded by the future perspectives of this frontier.

Automated summary

This review discusses the limitations and modification strategies of ZnIn2S4 as a semiconductor photocatalyst, as well as its performance in hydrogen evolution, overall water splitting, and CO2 reduction reactions. This is of great significance for promoting the sustainable utilization of renewable fuels.