Recently iChEM researcher Prof. Pingwu Du from USTC designed and synthesized non-precious metal catalyst for high efficient photocatalyzed hydrogen production. The result was published as cover title on Energy & Environmental Science entitled with “Extraordinarily efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution in water using semiconductor nanorods integrated with crystalline Ni2P cocatalysts” （Energy & Environmental Science, 2015, 8, 2668-2676. DOI: 10.1039/C5EE01310K）.They anchored crystalline nickel phosphide (Ni2P) as the co-catalyst onto one-dimensional CdS nanorods, showed high activity and stability for photocatalytic H2 evolution in water under visible light.

Conventional oil and fossil energy consumption caused the global warming, environmental pollution, energy shortages and other issues, which is a major challenge currently for humanity. Under this background, low-carbon economy based on low energy consumption and low pollution is becoming the focus of global concern and research. Hydrogen as a clean and efficient secondary energy carrier, is considered to be important clean energy source to the future of humankind. Therefore, it is an important way to development and use of pollution-free hydrogen to achieve a low-carbon economy. It is an increasing concern to develop non-polluting, low-cost hydrogen production technology. By designing an efficient, low-cost photocatalytic system to absorb light and decompose water into hydrogen, people see the possibility of converting solar energy into hydrogen.

The group found that the transition metal phosphide as a co-catalyst has good photocatalytic hydrogen production properties. Loading the copper phosphate, molybdenum phosphide on the semiconductor can effectively improve the photocatalytic hydrogen production efficiency (J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015, 3, 10243-10247; J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015, 3, 16941-16947). Based on previous work, the group utilizing solvothermal method to load Ni2P co-catalyst on CdS semiconductor, and got the Ni2P /CdS structure with even distribution and close contact. The photoinduced charge transfer process was further confirmed by steady-state photoluminescence spectra and time-resolved photoluminescence spectra. The highest rate for hydrogen production reached 1,200 μmol h-1 mg-1 based on the photocatalyst. The turnover number (TON) reached 3,270,000 in 90 hours with a turnover frequency (TOF) of 36,400 h-1 for Ni2P. Due to low prices of raw materials, high performance, simple preparation, this material exhibit significant prospects for photocatalytic hydrogen production.

First author of this paper is Zijun Sun. The study is supported by iChEM, the National Natural Science Foundation and the new century talents.

URL link for article: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2015/ee/c5ee01310k