Sulfur-mediated photodeposition synthesis of NiS cocatalyst for boosting H2-evolution performance of g-C3N4 photocatalyst

Modification of nickel sulfide cocatalysts is considered to be a promising approach for efficient enhancement the photocatalytic hydrogen production performance g-C3N4. Providing more NiS cocatalyst function as active sites g-C3N4 still highly desirable. To realize this goal, in work, facile sulfur-mediated photodeposition was developed. Specifically, photogenerated electrons excited by visible light reduce S molecules absorbed on surface S2−, and subsequently formed situ combination Ni2+ S2− due their small solubility product constant (Ksp = 3.2 × 10−19). This has several advantages. The clearly deposited electron transfer g-C3N4, thus provides H2 production. In addition, method utilizes solar energy with mild reaction conditions at room temperature. Consequently, synthesized NiS/g-C3N4 photocatalyst achieves excellent generation optimal sample (244 μmol h−1 g−1) close that 1 wt% Pt/g-C3N4 (316 g−1, well-known photocatalyst). More importantly, present route versatile can used deposit various metal sulfides such CoSx, CuSx AgSx surface, all resulting sulfide-modified photocatalysts exhibit improved H2-production performance. Our study offers novel insight synthesis high-efficiency photocatalysts.