Anchoring Ni2P on the UiO‐66‐NH2/g‐C3N4‐derived C‐doped ZrO2/g‐C3N4 Heterostructure: Highly Efficient Photocatalysts for H2 Production from Water Splitting

Abstract Constructing heterostructured photocatalysts and depositing an appropriate co‐catalyst to facilitate charge separation are crucial steps to improve photocatalytic H 2 evolution from water splitting. Herein, we reported the synthesis of C‐doped ZrO 2 /g‐C 3 N 4 /Ni 2 P (C‐ZrO 2 /g‐C 3 N 4 /Ni 2 P) composite based on the UiO‐66‐NH 2 material for photocatalytic H 2 production under visible‐light irradiation. The optimal H 2 evolution rate over C‐ZrO 2 /g‐C 3 N 4 /20 %Ni 2 P was 10.04 mmol g −1 h −1 , which was more than 10 times higher than that of C‐ZrO 2 /20 %Ni 2 P (0.90 mmol g −1 h −1 ). The apparent quantum yield of C‐ZrO 2 /g‐C 3 N 4 /20 %Ni 2 P at 420 nm reached 35.5 %. A detailed analysis of the action mechanism revealed that the improved photocatalytic activity could be ascribed to the highly efficient spatial separation of the photoinduced charge carriers between C‐ZrO 2 and g‐C 3 N 4 , as a result of the tightly bound structure of C‐ZrO 2 /g‐C 3 N 4 /20 %Ni 2 P and its staggered band energy. The presence of the Ni 2 P co‐catalyst accelerates the surface reaction as well. This work demonstrates that anchoring appropriate co‐catalysts onto a metal–organic framework (MOF)/g‐C 3 N 4 ‐derived metal oxide/g‐C 3 N 4 hybrid is an effective way to obtain heterostructured photocatalysts for H 2 production.