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Ultra-Thin Red Phosphor Nanosheets as an Efficient Photocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution Under Visible Light

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Abstract

As a photocatalyst responding to visible light, red phosphorus has the advantages of cheap and easy availability, low toxicity and suitable band gap. In this work, ultra-thin red phosphorus (URP) with the narrower band gap through ultrasound for 8 h was successfully synthesized. Though a series of characterization (such as: XPS analysis, photoelectric response analysis, Raman analysis, AFM images, etc.), the narrow band gap and ultra-thin nanosheet structure could promote the generation of more photogenerated electrons and effectively improve the separation rate of photogenerated charges for highly efficient hydrogen evolution. URP showed the excellent photocatalytic hydrogen production without any cocatalysts (0.55 mmol g−1 h−1), which was 2.88 times for untreated red phosphorus. In addition, URP overcame the limited stability and decreased the band gap of red phosphorus, producing hydrogen at a rate of 0.16 mmol g−1 h−1 after three cycles. This readily available and ultra-thin material can be used as a substrate material for other materials due to its similar graphene thickness.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 22076082, 21874099 and 21872102), the Tianjin Commission of Science and Technology as key technologies R&D projects (Grant Nos. 18YFZCSF00730, 18YFZCSF00770, 18ZXSZSF00230, 19YFZCSF00740 and 20YFZCSN01070).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, People’s Republic of China

    Fangyuan Chen, Kelei Mu, Dongpeng Zhang, Xueyue Mi & Sihui Zhan

  2. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Department of Chemistry, School of Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Yi Li

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, People’s Republic of China

    Zhurui Shen

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  1. Fangyuan Chen
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  2. Kelei Mu
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  3. Dongpeng Zhang
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  4. Xueyue Mi
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  5. Yi Li
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Correspondence to Zhurui Shen or Sihui Zhan.

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There are no competing interests to declare. All authors have approved the publication of the manuscript. And the authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships.

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On behalf of my co-author, I would like to declare that the work described is original research and has not been published before, nor is it considered for publication elsewhere.

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Chen, F., Mu, K., Zhang, D. et al. Ultra-Thin Red Phosphor Nanosheets as an Efficient Photocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution Under Visible Light. Top Catal 64, 559–566 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11244-021-01454-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11244-021-01454-9

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