Enhanced interfacial electric field via sulfur vacancies modified ZnIn₂S₄-Vs@NiIn₂S₄ S-scheme photocatalysts for simultaneous H₂ evolution and benzyl alcohol oxidation

Designing and developing efficient photocatalysts for H₂ evolution and simultaneous oxidation of benzyl alcohol (BA) in aqueous environments provides a cutting-edge strategy for green synthesis. Nevertheless, the photocatalysts suffer from the low photoconversion efficiency because of the sluggish dynamics and repaid recombination of photogenerated charge carriers, which hindering their widespread applications. To address the limitation, a multifunctionnal sulfur vacancies (SVs) modified ZIS-Vs@NIS S-scheme heterojunction with a strong interfacial electric field effect was synthesized to use photocatalytic H₂ production and BA oxidation, simultaneously. Experimental analysis supports that the synergistic effect of SVs and S-scheme heterojunction engineering result in a suitable energy band structure alignment and larger Fermi level potential difference. Those factors can realize effective charge transfer and separation, and enhance the photocatalytic performance. As anticipated, ZIS-Vs@NIS exhibited a superior photocatalytic performance with H₂ and benzaldehyde (BAD) yields up to 168.1 and 146.1 μmol under the simulated solar-light irradiation for 1.0 h, respectively, which are approximately 13.3 and 11.8 times higher than pristine ZIS. Moreover, the photocatalytic H₂ evolution coupled with BA oxidative dehydrogenation mechanism via S-scheme heterojunction over ZIS-Vs@NIS is also demonstrated in detail.