A direct Z-scheme PtS2/arsenene van der Waals heterostructure with high photocatalytic water splitting efficiency

Kai Ren; Wencheng Tang; Minglei Sun; Yongqing Cai; Yuan Cheng; Gang Zhang

doi:10.1039/D0NR02286A

A direct Z-scheme PtS₂/arsenene van der Waals heterostructure with high photocatalytic water splitting efficiency†

Kai Ren,

^ab Wencheng Tang,

*^a Minglei Sun,

^a Yongqing Cai,

^c Yuan Cheng

^b and Gang Zhang

*^b

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 211189, China
E-mail: 101000185@seu.edu.cn

^b Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore 138632
E-mail: zhangg@ihpc.a-star.edu.sg

^c Joint Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau, China

Abstract

To overcome current serious energy and environmental issues, photocatalytic water splitting holds great promise because it requires only solar energy as an energy input to produce hydrogen. In this work, based on first-principle calculations, we studied the van der Waals heterostructure formed by PtS₂ and arsenene (Are) monolayers that were successfully synthesized on a large scale at high quality. From an analysis of the migration paths of photoinduced electrons and holes, a direct Z-scheme photocatalytic mechanism is demonstrated in this heterostructure. Furthermore, the PtS₂/Are direct Z-scheme heterostructure has decent band edge positions to promote the redox reaction to decompose water at pH 0. The interfacial charge difference and potential drop are presented, which further support the formation of a direct Z-scheme photocatalyst. More importantly, the PtS₂/Are heterostructure has quite high solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency (49.32%), significantly enhanced compared with isolated PtS₂ (12.67%) or Are (10.34%) monolayers. This direct Z-scheme PtS₂/Are heterostructure with excellent STH efficiency suggests its promising application as a photocatalyst for water splitting.

This article is part of the themed collection: Nanoscale 2021 Lunar New Year Collection

Supplementary files

Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0NR02286A
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 21 Mar 2020
Accepted: 22 Jun 2020
First published: 24 Jun 2020

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Nanoscale, 2020,12, 17281-17289

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A direct Z-scheme PtS₂/arsenene van der Waals heterostructure with high photocatalytic water splitting efficiency

K. Ren, W. Tang, M. Sun, Y. Cai, Y. Cheng and G. Zhang, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 17281 DOI: 10.1039/D0NR02286A

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