A hierarchical carbon nanofiber-In2S3 photocatalyst with well controlled nanostructures for highly efficient hydrogen production under visible light

• Main Authors: Li, Anran, Sun, Darren, Tai, Minghang, Liu, Zhaoyang, Gao, Peng
• Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Nanostructure; DRNTU::Engineering::Materials; Hierarchical
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/83161; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/47580; http://www.nsti.org/procs/Nanotech2014v3/4/W4.175
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In this study, a novel hierarchical visible-light responsive photocatalyst was delicately designed and synthesized by anchoring In2S3 flower-like nanostructures on non-woven carbon nanofibers (CNC) for the first time. The nanostructures of these CNF-In2S3 composites were fine tuned, with the aim to achieve the highest photocatalytic hydrogen production activity under visible light. The results indicated that the hierarchical CNF-In2S3-24h photocatalyst exhibited exceptionally high hydrogen evolution rate (ca. 390 μmol h-1), which was around 15 and 12 times higher than that of pure In2S3 and commercial N-TiO2 nanoparticles, respectively. The prominent photocatalytic hydrogen production activity of the hierarchical CNF-In2S3-24h photocatalyst can be attributed to the excellent properties of enhanced light absorption and efficient charge separation, which are all derived from the special 3D hierarchical nanostructures.