title: Fabrication of graphene wrapped ZnIn2S4 microspheres heterojunction with enhanced interfacial contact and its improved photocatalytic performance.
abstract: Due to their build-in electric fields locating at interfaces of different materials, heterojunctions have shown excellent carrier separation ability and received wide attention in photocatalysis and photovoltaics. In general, larger interface area and smoother carrier transfer pathway are favorable for heterojunctions to achieve larger active area of build-in electric fields and longer photogenerated charge lifetime, respectively, and sequentially the heterojunctions may show optimized separation ability. However, there is hardly any report about this topic. In this paper, we design a new heterojunction material where a graphene (Gr) layer is close-fitting as the surface of the ZnIn2S4 microspheres (ZnIn2S4@Gr) in virtue of the electrostatic interaction between the functional groups of GO and the amino groups of ZnIn2S4 microspheres. Benefiting from the effective contact of Gr and ZnIn2S4 at their interface as well as the superior charge transfer ability of Gr, this structure displays good photocatalytic capability. The kinetic constant of phenol degradation on ZnIn2S4@Gr was 3.03 h(-1), which was 8.4-fold and 1.5-fold higher than those on ZnIn2S4 and ZnIn2S4-Gr composites, respectively. Furthermore, the excellent performance was stable according to the result of the consecutive cycling experiment. These experimental results demonstrated that the large interface area and smooth carrier transfer pathway were significant for heterojunction materials to provide better photogenerated charge separation properties.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. quanxie@dlut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Houfen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hongtao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Shuo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Yaobin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xie
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Quan