Porous lantern-like MFI zeolites composed of 2D nanosheets for highly efficient visible light-driven photocatalysis

Abstract

Solar energy-driven photocatalysis, such as photocatalytic H₂O splitting to produce H₂, is a promising strategy to solve the energy and environmental crises. Applications of zeolites, which have been widely used in conventional thermal-driven catalysis, in photocatalysis are still limited, due to their low photocatalytic efficiencies. Herein, we fabricated a porous lantern-like MFI zeolite composed of 2D nanosheets (NL-MFI) and used NL-MFI to support Pt and CdS nanoparticles to form a CdS/Pt/NL-MFI photocatalyst. During water splitting under irradiation of visible light, CdS/Pt/NL-MFI exhibits a H₂ evolution rate as high as 2152.7 μmol h⁻¹, with an apparent quantum efficiency of 39.4%. This is significantly enhanced, as compared with that by using commercial MFI zeolite supported CdS and Pt nanoparticles (1079.3 μmol h⁻¹) and that by using Pt/CdS without the NL-MFI zeolite (515.0 μmol h⁻¹). The NL-MFI zeolite support promotes the absorption of visible light, the separation of photogenerated electron–hole pairs and the interaction of water molecules with the photocatalyst. This could be the origin of the enhanced photocatalytic efficiency of CdS/Pt/NL-MFI. The results of the present work are helpful to fabricate zeolite-based photocatalysts for efficient solar energy-driven photocatalysis.