Vacancy defect

Catalysis

Engineering

Chemical physics

Photochemistry

Materials science

Electronic band structure

Water splitting

Absorption (acoustics)

Molecule

Chemical engineering

Physics

Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

van der Waals force

Condensed matter physics

Composite material

Heterojunction

Crystallography

Chemistry

Photocatalysis

Optoelectronics

Photocatalytic water splitting

Applied Catalysis B Environment and Energy

Fabricating 2D/2D heterojunction with vacancy is more favorable to the spatial separation and transfer of charge owing to the matching of unique 2D structure and vacancy engineering, but the regulation and observation of interlayer forces and electronic structure is a challenging task for synthesizing heterojunction photocatalyst and studying the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution mechanism. Herein, an original 2D/2D ZnIn2S4/g-C3N4 Van der Waals heterojunction with S vacancies (ZIS-S/CN VDW) photocatalyst are firstly engineered. The optimized 30ZIS-S/g-C3N4 has the highest H2 evolution rate of 6095.1 μmol h−1 g−1, which is primarily attributed to the fact that 2D/2D VDW heterojunction possesses larger contact area and strong electronic interaction to stimulate charge kinetics, and the vacancy engineering can enhance light absorption by regulating the electronic band structure and act as effective active sites for capturing electrons. This work not only enriches 2D/2D heterojunction photocatalytic system based on g-C3N4, but also provides alternative proposal for engineering 2D/2D heterojunction photocatalyst with satisfactory performance.

Synergy between van der waals heterojunction and vacancy in ZnIn2S4/g-C3N4 2D/2D photocatalysts for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution