Facile Construction of 2D/2D ZnInS-Based Bifunctional Photocatalysts for H Production and Simultaneous Degradation of Rhodamine B and Tetracycline.

A two-dimensional/two-dimensional (2D/2D) TiO/ZnInS photocatalyst was reasonably proposed and constructed by a two-step oil bath-hydrothermal method. TiO nanosheets uniformly grown on the surface of ZnInS nanosheets and a synergetic effect between the TiO and ZnInS could highly contribute to improving the specific surface area and hydrophilicity of ZnInS as well as accelerating the separation and transfer of photon-generated e-h pairs, and thus enhancing the visible-light photocatalytic degradation and H evolution performance of ZnInS. Rhodamine B (RhB) and tetracycline (TC) were simultaneously selected as the target pollutants for degradation in the work. The optimum photocatalytic RhB and TC degradation properties of TiO/ZnInS-10 wt% were almost 3.11- and 8.61-fold higher than that of pure ZnInS, separately, while the highest photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate was also observed in the presence of TiO/ZnInS-10wt% and 4.28-fold higher than that of ZnInS. Moreover, the possible photocatalytic mechanisms for enhanced visible-light photocatalytic degradation and H evolution were investigated and proposed in detail. Our research results open an easy pathway for developing efficient bifunctional photocatalysts.