Ultrathin ZnIn<sub>2</sub>S<sub>4</sub> Nanosheets Anchored on Ti<sub>3</sub>C<sub>2</sub>T<sub><i>X</i></sub> MXene for Photocatalytic H<sub>2</sub> Evolution
Gancheng Zuo, Yuting Wang, Wei Liang Teo, Aming Xie, Yang Guo, Yuxuan Dai, Weiqiang Zhou, Deblin Jana, Qiming Xian, Wei Dong, Yanli Zhao
Abstract
Abstract Photocatalysts derived from semiconductor heterojunctions that harvest solar energy and catalyze reactions still suffer from low solar‐to‐hydrogen conversion efficiency. Now, MXene (Ti 3 C 2 T X ) nanosheets (MNs) are used to support the in situ growth of ultrathin ZnIn 2 S 4 nanosheets (UZNs), producing sandwich‐like hierarchical heterostructures (UZNs‐MNs‐UZNs) for efficient photocatalytic H 2 evolution. Opportune lateral epitaxy of UZNs on the surface of MNs improves specific surface area, pore diameter, and hydrophilicity of the resulting materials, all of which could be beneficial to the photocatalytic activity. Owing to the Schottky junction and ultrathin 2D structures of UZNs and MNs, the heterostructures could effectively suppress photoexcited electron–hole recombination and boost photoexcited charge transfer and separation. The heterostructure photocatalyst exhibits improved photocatalytic H 2 evolution performance (6.6 times higher than pristine ZnIn 2 S 4 ) and excellent stability.