Light-induced CoOX surface reconstruction in hollow heterostructure for durable photocatalytic seawater splitting
Chunyu Yuan, Hongfei Yin, Jing Li, Yuxi Zhang, Hongji Chen, Dongdong Xiao, Qizhao Wang, Yongzheng Zhang, Qi-Kun Xue, Yongzheng Zhang, Qi-Kun Xue
Abstract
Photocorrosion triggered by the unconsumed photogenerated holes severely deteriorates the photocatalytic efficiency and stability of semiconductor photocatalysts, especially in seawater with complex ions. Here, we report a hierarchical hollow ZnIn2S4 heterostructure integrating an inner CoOx nanocage and atomically dispersed Pt anchoring at surface S vacancies for hydrogen evolution from natural seawater (23.88 mmol g−1 h−1) and pure water (48.99 mmol g−1 h−1) under visible light. The dynamic Co2+/Co3+ self-reconstruction of the inner CoOx cage effectively consumes photogenerated holes, while the outer Pt1 single atoms localized at S vacancies serve as electron sinks to facilitate electron extraction and proton reduction. Benefiting from the dynamic hole-scavenging mechanism via oxidation self-reconstruction, the Pt1-ZnIn2S4@CoOX photocatalyst exhibits enhanced durability against alkali metal ions in seawater and maintains high reactivity for long-term hydrogen evolution. This work underscores the importance of light-induced transition metal dynamic self-reconstruction within hierarchical hollow heterostructure photocatalysts for sustainable hydrogen evolution. Photocorrosion caused by unreacted holes limits the performance of photocatalysts for photocatalytic seawater splitting. Here, the authors report that a hollow ZnIn2S4 structure with CoOx and Pt single atoms enables efficient, durable hydrogen production from seawater via dynamic self-reconstruction.