LAUSR

Abstract To make persistent efforts at enhancing hydrogen evolution driven by solar energy, this work, for the first time, had introduced flower-like ZnIn2S4 coupled with black phosphorus (BP) as efficient photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution with photo-deposited Pt assisted under visible light irradiation. The hydrogen evolution efficiency of BP, ZnIn2S4, 0.5%BP/ZnIn2S4, 0.5%Pt/BP, 0.5%Pt/ZnIn2S4 and 0.5%Pt/0.5%BP/ZnIn2S4 photocatalysts were successively conducted and results showed that both BP and Pt played an important role in enhancing the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate. Therefore, the ternary 0.5%Pt/0.5%BP/ZnIn2S4 composite exhibited the strongest hydrogen production efficiency at 1278 μmol/g/h, about 10 times higher than that of pristine ZnIn2S4 (131 μmol/g/h) and represented a highly stable characteristic after suffering four recycles. The promoting hydrogen evolution of ternary photocatalyst could be ascribed to the unique bandgap and larger two-dimensional plane structure of BP, which provided abundant landing sites for the anchor of flower-like ZnIn2S4, thus leading to a well-inhibited recombination and efficient separation of photogenerated electrons and hole pairs between ZnIn2S4 and BP. The remarkable photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance and prominent stability all indicated that 0.5%Pt/0.5%BP/ZnIn2S4 was a promising photocatalyst candidate for solar hydrogen production.