Single crystalline quaternary sulfide nanobelts for efficient solar-to-hydrogen conversion.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33060575.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-18679-z and PMC identifier 7567062.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Although solar-driven water splitting on semiconductor photocatalysts is an attractive route for hydrogen generation, there is a lack of excellent photocatalysts with high visible light activity. Due to their tunable bandgaps suitable for superior visible-light absorption, copper-based quaternary sulfides have been the important candidates. Here, we first assessed the preferred facet of wurtzite Cu-Zn-In-S for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction using the relevant Gibbs free energies determined by first principle calculation. We then developed a colloidal method to synthesize single crystalline wurtzite Cu-Zn-In-S nanobelts (NBs) exposing (0001) facet with the lowest reaction Gibbs energy, as well as Cu-Zn-Ga-S NBs exposing (0001) facet. The obtained single crystalline Cu-Zn-In-S and Cu-Zn-Ga-S NBs exhibit superior hydrogen production activities under visible-light irradiation, which is composition-dependent. Our protocol represents an alternative surface engineering approach to realize efficient solar-to-chemical conversion of single crystalline copper-based multinary chalcogenides.