Visible-light-driven hydrogen production from water in a noble-metal-free system catalyzed by zinc porphyrin sensitized MoS2/ZnO

Abstract Photocatalytic hydrogen production system using zinc oxide as a photocatalyst typically suffer from low efficiency because of the wide band gap of ZnO. Despite tremendous efforts, it is still a great challenge to design efficient visible-light-responsive ZnO-based photocatalysts for hydrogen production. Herein, a new system for visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution was constructed by using Zn(II)-5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl)porphyrin dye-sensitized MoS 2 /ZnO as a photocatalyst and triethanolamine as the sacrificial reductant. Even without any noble metal, the as-prepared composite photocatalyst loaded with 0.50 wt% MoS 2 has a H 2 production rate of 75 μmol h −1  g −1 under visible light irradiation ( λ  > 420 nm), and the turnover number with respect to zinc dye reaches 516 after 9 h visible light irradiation. This study might offer a new paradigm for constructing efficient, visible-light-responsive and noble-metal-free solar-to-H 2 conversion system by using dye-sensitized semiconductor as the photocatalyst.