A Unique Ternary Semiconductor-(Semiconductor/Metal) Nano-Architecture for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution.
It has been a long-standing demand to design hetero-nanostructures for charge-flow steering in semiconductor systems. Multi-component nanocrystals exhibit multifunctional properties or synergistic performance, and are thus attractive materials for energy conversion, medical therapy, and photoelectric catalysis applications. Herein we report the design and synthesis of binary and ternary multi-node sheath hetero-nanorods in a sequential chemical transformation procedure. As verified by first-principles simulations, the conversion from type-I ZnS-CdS heterojunction into type-II ZnS-(CdS/metal) ensures well-steered collections of photo-generated electrons at the exposed ZnS nanorod stem and metal nanoparticles while holes at the CdS node sheaths, leading to substantially improved photocatalytic hydrogen-evolution performance.
Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (P.R. China) http://staff.ustc.edu.cn/∼yulab/
Tao-Tao
TT
Zhuang
Department of Chemical Physics, Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (P.R. China).
Yan
Y
Liu
Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (P.R. China) http://staff.ustc.edu.cn/∼yulab/
Meng
M
Sun
Department of Chemical Physics, Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (P.R. China).
Shen-Long
SL
Jiang
Research Institute of Photocatalysis, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis, State Key Laboratory Breeding Base, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002 (P.R. China).
Ming-Wen
MW
Zhang
Research Institute of Photocatalysis, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis, State Key Laboratory Breeding Base, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002 (P.R. China).
Xin-Chen
XC
Wang
Department of Chemical Physics, Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (P.R. China).
Qun
Q
Zhang
Department of Chemical Physics, Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (P.R. China). jiangj1@ustc.edu.cn.
Jun
J
Jiang
Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (P.R. China) http://staff.ustc.edu.cn/∼yulab/. shyu@ustc.edu.cn.
Shu-Hong
SH
Yu
charge separation; chemical transformation; hetero-nanorods; photocatalysis; ternary ZnS-(CdS/metal)