Anti‐Stoke effect induced enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production

Abstract

Photocatalytic hydrogen production via solar energy is considered one of the most strategic ways to produce renewable energy. However, expensive Pt is normally used as the cocatalyst during photocatalysis, which prevents commercialization. Therefore, extensive research has been performed to seek abundant and low‐cost alternative catalysts. In this work, MoS2 quantum dots (QDs) synthesized by a hydrothermal method are incorporated with graphitic carbon nitride to form a heterostructure for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. MoS2 QDs/g‐C3N4 heterostructure containing 5% and 10% MoS2 QDs exhibited a high hydrogen production of 140 and 152 µmol h−1g−1, respectively, demonstrating the potential of MoS2 as an effective economic cocatalyst. Detailed investigations indicate that incorporating MoS2 QDs with carbon nitride to form heterostructure reduces the bandgap, suppresses the recombination, and enhances electron kinetic energy resulting from the anti‐Stoke effect, thus leading to better performance for hydrogen evolution.

Mini‐Review: Progress on the Controllable Synthesis of Micro/Nanoscale Bi2S3 Functional Materials

“…[132] Compared to aforementioned approaches, photocatalysis is regarded as an active and radical form on account of the green decomposition of pollutants into environmental species without poisonousness, good reusability, and simple operation. [133][134][135] Importantly, the photocatalysis is explained as the production of hydroxyl, active holes and superoxide radicals in the process of pollutant degradation by the irradiation of semiconductors, thus translating into the innoxious products. [136] Specially, adsorption behavior is one of major influence factors in photocatalysis, depending on the adsorption capacity of catalysts affected by the quantity of active sites for contaminants.…”

Composition modulation of a hematite photoanode for highly efficient photoelectrochemical water oxidation

“…Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an attractive and feasible method for carbon neutralization to convert inexhaustible solar energy to hydrogen efficiently. 1,2 A photoelectrode is the key component in the PEC process, which takes part in light absorption, photo-induced charge separation and transfer, and surface chemical reactions. Among various semiconductor photoelectrodes, α-Fe 2 O 3 is regarded as an attractive candidate owing to its theoretical photocurrent density that can be as high as 12.6 mA cm −2 under an irradiation of 1.5G AM simulated sunlight, and the solar energy conversion efficiency (STH) in the ideal tandem PEC cell is about 16.8%.…”

Recent Advances in Carbon‐Based Electrodes for Energy Storage and Conversion

“…Hydrogen can be sourced directly from water splitting by electrolysis, photoelectrolysis, or solar thermochemical processes. [444][445][446][447][448][449][450][451] Electrolysis is commercially the most successful among these processes. The electrolysis of water proceeds with the hydrogen evolution at the cathode (HER) and oxygen evolution at the anode (OER) through a series of reactions occurring at each electrode.…”