Significant Enhancement of Hydrogen Production in MoS₂/Cu₂ZnSnS₄ Nanoparticles

Abstract

Hydrogen produced from water splitting is a renewable and clean energy source. Great efforts have been paid in searching for inexpensive and highly efficient photocatalysts. Here, significant enhancement of hydrogen production has been achieved by introducing ≈1 mol% of MoS2 to Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticles. The MoS2/Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticles showed a hydrogen evolution rate of ≈0.47 mmol g−1 h−1 in the presence of sacrificial agents, which is 7.8 times that of Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticles (0.06 mmol g−1 h−1). In addition, the MoS2/Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticles exhibited high stability, and only ≈3% of catalytic activity was lost after a long time irradiation (72 h). Microstructure investigation on the MoS2/Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticles reveals that the intimate contact between the nanostructured MoS2 and Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticles provides an effective one‐way expressway for photogenerated electrons transferring from the conduction band of Cu2ZnSnS4 to MoS2, thus boosting the lifetime of charge carriers, as well as reducing the recombination rate of electrons and holes.

Heterojunction Engineering of Multinary Metal Sulfide‐Based Photocatalysts for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

“…Three types of CZTS-based heterojunction photocatalysts (type-II, p−n junction, and Z-scheme) are shown in Figure 14e-i. The type-II heterojunctions are CZTS/MoS 2 [278] and CZTS/PANI; [279] p−n junctions are CZTS/CeO 2 [280] and CZTS/CdS; [281] and Zscheme heterojunction is CZTS/Cu 2 O. [282] The corresponding PHE rate of these CZTS-based heterojunction photocatalysts are listed in Table 5.…”