Nickel clusters accelerating hierarchical zinc indium sulfide nanoflowers for unprecedented visible-light hydrogen production.

As a typical two-dimensional (2D) metal chalcogenides and visible-light responsive semiconductor, zinc indium sulfide (ZnInS) has attracted much attention in photocatalysis. However, the high recombination rate of photogenerated electrons and holes seriously limits its performance for hydrogen production. In this work, we report in-situ photodeposition of Ni clusters in hierarchical ZnInS nanoflowers (Ni/ZnInS) to achieve unprecedented photocatalytic hydrogen production. The Ni clusters not only provide plenty of active sites for reactions as evidenced by in-situ photoluminescence measurement, but also effectively accelerate the separation and migration of the photogenerated electrons and holes in ZnInS. Consequently, the Ni/ZnInS composites exhibit good stability and reusability with highly enhanced visible-light hydrogen production. In particular, the best Ni/ZnInS photocatalyst exhibits an unprecedented hydrogen production rate of 22.2 mmol·h·g, 10.6 times that of the pure ZnInS (2.1 mmol·h·g). And its apparent quantum yield (AQY) is as high as 56.14% under 450 nm monochromatic light. Our work here suggests that depositing non-precious Ni clusters in ZnInS is quite promising for the potential practical photocatalysis in solar energy conversion.