Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production from Pure Water Using a IEF-11/g-C₃N₄ S-Scheme Heterojunction

Construction of S-scheme heterojunction offers a promising way to enhance the photocatalytic performance of photocatalysts for converting solar energy into chemical energy. However, the photocatalytic H-2 production in pure water without sacrificial agents is still a challenge. Herein, the IEF-11 with the best photocatalytic H-2 production performance in MOFs and suitable band structure was selected and firstly constructed with g-C3N4 to obtain a S-scheme heterojunction for photocatalytic H-2 production from pure water. As a result, the novel IEF-11/g-C3N4 heterojunction photocatalysts exhibited significantly improved photocatalytic H-2 production performance in pure water without any sacrificial agent, with a rate of 576 mu mol/g/h, which is about 8 times than that of g-C3N4 and 23 times of IEF-11. The novel IEF-11/g-C3N4 photocatalysts also had a photocatalytic H-2 production rate of up to 92 mu mol/g/h under visible light and a good photocatalytic stability. The improved performance can be attributed to the efficient separation of photogenerated charge carriers, faster charge transfer efficiency and longer photogenerated carrier lifetimes, which comes from the forming of S-scheme heterojunction in the IEF-11/g-C3N4 photocatalyst. This work is a promising guideline for obtaining MOF-based or g-C3N4-based photocatalysts with great photocatalytic water splitting performance.