Cu2O/2D COFs Core/Shell Nanocubes with Antiphotocorrosion Ability for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Photocorrosion of highly active photocatalysts is an urgent problem to be solved in the field of photocatalysis; however, searching for effective strategies for inhibiting photocorrosion of photocatalysts is still a grand challenge. Herein, we design and construct a class of Cu2O/2D PyTTA-TPA COFs (PyTTA: 1,3,6,8-Tetrakis(4-aminophenyl)pyrene, TPA: p-benzaldehyde) core/shell nanocubes to greatly boost the performance of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution and significantly inhibit the photocorrosion. The optimal Cu2O/PyTTA-TPA COFs core/shell nanocubes exhibit an excellent photocatalytic H2 evolution rate of 12.5 mmol h-1 g-1, which is ∼8.0-fold and ∼20.0-fold higher than those of PyTTA-TPA COFs and Cu2O nanocube, respectively, and also is the best in all the reported metal oxides catalytic materials. The mechanism studies demonstrate that the appropriate matching band gaps and tight integration of PyTTA-TPA COFs and Cu2O nanocubes can significantly facilitate the separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs in the Cu2O/PyTTA-TPA COFs core/shell nanocube during the photocatalytic process, which ameliorates the photocatalytic H2 evolution activity. Most importantly, the 2D PyTTA-TPA COFs shell with outstanding intrinsic stability protects Cu2O nanocubes core from photocorrosion by showing no morphology and crystal structure change after 1000 times of photoexcitation.