ZIF-L-derived C-doped ZnO via a two-step calcination for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are considered as desirable precursors for the preparation of photocatalyst to improve photocatalytic hydrogen evolution efficiency due to the maintained special morphology. Herein, C-doped rod-like ZnO with porous structure has been successfully prepared by using ZIF-L as precursor via an optimized two-step calcination strategy, which is applied for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction from water splitting. The results show that ZnO-350-450 exhibits the best photocatalytic activity with a hydrogen production rate of 0.35 mmol·g −1 ·h −1 , which is 1.9 times higher than that of ZnO-400 (0.184 mmol·g −1 ·h −1 ) under simulated sunlight illumination. The enhanced photocatalytic performance is attributed to the fact that the two-step calcination provides the regular porous rod-like structure (ZIF-L) and the inclusion of carbon in ZnO photocatalyst. C-doped ZnO with regular morphology offers faster charge transfer rate and higher charge separation efficiency, and the C-doped expands a wider range of light absorption. Overall, the presented work could provide a new idea for designing and preparing of photocatalysts with high efficiency for photocatalytic hydrogen production.