Efficient splitting of alcohols into hydrogen and C–C coupled products over ultrathin Ni-doped ZnIn2S4 nanosheet photocatalyst

Integrating selective organic synthesis with hydrogen (H2) evolution in one photocatalytic redox reaction system sheds light on the underlying approach for concurrent employment of photogenerated electrons and holes towards efficient production of solar fuels and chemicals. In this work, a facile one-pot oil bath method has been proposed to fabricate a noble metal-free ultrathin Ni-doped ZnIn2S4 (ZIS/Ni) composite nanosheet for effective solar-driven selective dehydrocoupling of benzyl alcohol into value-added C–C coupled hydrobenzoin and H2 fuel, which exhibits higher performance than pure ZIS nanosheet. The remarkably improved photoredox activity of ZIS/Ni is mainly attributed to the optimized electron structure featuring narrower band gap and suitable energy band position, which facilitates the ability of light harvesting and photoexcited charge carrier separation and transfer. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that it is feasible to employ ZIS/Ni for various aromatic alcohols dehydrocoupling to the corresponding C–C coupled products. It is expected that this work can stimulate further interest on the establishment of innovative photocatalytic redox platform coupling clean solar fuels synthesis and selective organic conversion in a sustainable manner.