Direct synthesis of all-inorganic heterostructured CdSe/CdS QDs in aqueous solution for improved photocatalytic hydrogen generation

Abstract

A facile aqueous approach is developed to synthesize heterostructured CdSe/CdS QDs for advanced hydrogen photosynthesis.

Efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution with ligand engineered all-inorganic InP and InP/ZnS colloidal quantum dots

“…Similar phenomena have been observed in field effect transistors and in solar cells based on QDs with inorganic ligands over the past years 30 , 31 , 57 , 58 . Recent work also shows the inhibitory effect of thiol ligands on CdS QDs for photocatalysis 59 , and exceptional hydrogen evolution efficiency was achieved based on CdSe/CdS QDs with S 2− ligands 32 . So here we attribute the superior hydrogen evolution efficiency with InP/ZnS-S QDs to the replacement of conventional organic ligands by inorganic sulfide ligands.…”

“…Modification of the as prepared QDs with inorganic sulfide (S 2- ) ions 29 , 30 furthermore brings forward progress in ligand engineering of QDs, as a key area in solar energy conversion 31 . These sulfide ions not only endow QDs with good water solubility, but also with remarkable activity in photocatalytic processes 32 . We demonstrate the important role of S 2− ligands for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution by comparing different organic and inorganic ligand types.…”

A Low‐Cost Metal‐Free Photocatalyst Based on Black Phosphorus

“…Therefore, the adjacent BP acts as the electron acceptor to inhibit charge recombination of the photogenerated carriers and the electrons on the CB of BP are trapped by the interfacial PN bond for the subsequent H 2 evolution . On the other hand, the photogenerated holes in CN (1.7 V vs NHE) are more likely to be eliminated by IPA directly since the VB of BP (−0.01 V vs NHE) is more negative than the oxidation potential of IPA (0.12 V vs NHE) . Based on the above discussion, H 2 generation of BP/CN stems from promoted charge separation and efficient catalytic sites.…”

Nonstoichiometric CuxInyS Quantum Dots for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

“…The extended X‐ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS, Figure b and Table S6) suggests Ni−O with a bond length of 2.03 Å. No obvious Ni−Ni bond exists in the system and this indicates that Ni(OH) 2 clusters are not the catalytic species in the system under acidic condition (pH 4) . After irradiation of 2 h, XANES of Ni K‐edge shows that the main species in the system remains Ni 2+ (Figure S9).…”