In situ etching growth of defective ZnS nanosheets anchored vertically on layered-double-hydroxide microflowers for accelerated photocatalytic activity

Two-dimensional nanomaterial semiconductor is an efficient photocatalyst due to the unique properties such as abundant exposed active sites and large contact area with reactant. Herein, a hierarchical architecture that consists of highly dispersed ZnS nanosheets (ZnS NSs) with S vacancies vertically anchored on the Zn-In-layered-double-hydroxide (Zn-In-LDH) is successfully constructed through in situ etching growth process. The defective ZnS NSs grown perpendicularly on the Zn-In-LDH surfaces with abundant exposed area disperse extensively and exhibit good performance of photocatalytic hydrogen production under visible light irradiation. It is due to the synergistic effect of large specific surface area, separate vertically grown ZnS NSs and S defects, that the optical ZnS/Zn-In-LDH composite shows an improved H 2 evolution rate of 49.3 μmol h −1 g cat −1 (154.8 μmol h −1 g ZnS −1 ) and the AQE at 415 nm can be as high as 1.315 %. Besides, this work is expected to facilitate other analogous nanosheets synthesized based on the layered double hydroxides.