Controlling amount of intrinsic S vacancies was achieved in ZnS spheres which were synthesized by a hydrothermal method using Zn and S powders in concentrated NaOH solution with NaBH4 added as reducing agent. These S vacancies efficiently extend absorption spectra of ZnS to visible region. Their photocatalytic activities for H2 production under visible light were evaluated by gas chromatograph, and the midgap states of ZnS introduced by S vacancies were examined by density functional calculations. Our study reveals that the concentration of S vacancies in the ZnS samples can be controlled by varying the amount of the reducing agent NaBH4 in the synthesis, and the prepared ZnS samples exhibit photocatalytic activity for H2 production under visible-light irradiation without loading noble metal. This photocatalytic activity of ZnS increases steadily with increasing the concentration of S vacancies until the latter reaches an optimum value. Our density functional calculations show that S vacancies generate midgap defect states in ZnS, which lead to visible-light absorption and responded.

Water-in-salts are a new family of electrolytes that may allow the development of aqueous Li-ion batteries. They have a structure which is reminiscent of the one of ionic 1 liquids, and they are characterized by a large concentration of ionic species. In this work we study their transport properties and how they evolve with concentration by using molecular dynamics simulations. We first focus on the choice of the force field. By comparing the simulated viscosities and self diffusion coefficients with experimental measurements, we select a set of parameters that reproduces well the transport properties. We then use the selected force field to study in detail the variations of the self and collective diffusivities of all the species as well as the transport number of the lithium ion. We show that correlation between ions and water play an important role over the whole concentration range. In the water-in-salt regime, the anions form a percolating network which reduces the cation-anion correlations and leads to rather large values for the transport number compared to other standard electrolytes.