Sustainable H<sub>2</sub> Production from Lignocellulosic Biomass over MoS<sub>2</sub> Modified Sulfur Vacancy Enriched ZnIn<sub>2</sub>S<sub>4</sub> Photocatalyst
Ji‐Ping Tang, Yan Chen, Ziyi Wang, Yun-Hui Hu, Jiahao Wang, Liang Bao, Zong‐Yan Zhao, Yongjun Yuan
Abstract
Exploring visible-light-responsive photocatalysts for photocatalytic lignocellulosic biomass-to-H 2 conversion remains a glamorous but challenging goal because the photogenerated holes cannot directly transfer to biomass owing to the absence of a charge transfer channel. Herein, we design ZnIn 2 S 4 nanosheets with abundant sulfur vacancy (V S -ZnIn 2 S 4 ) as visible light responsive photocatalysts for photocatalytic H 2 production from lignocellulosic biomass in the presence of MoS 2 as the cocatalyst. In this smartly designed photocatalysts, the sulfur vacancy in ZnIn 2 S 4 reduces the energy barrier of • OH generation reaction and results in the fast dynamics for the generation of • OH, which acts as the crucial species for the oxygenolysis of lignocellulosic biomass. As expected, the H 2 generation rate of the optimized MoS 2 /V S -ZnIn 2 S 4 photocatalyst in α-cellulose and bamboo powder aqueous solution achieves 1572 and 133 μmol·g –1 ·h –1, respectively. This study validates the feasibility of sulfur vacancy to boost visible light photocatalytic conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into H 2 fuel.