Construction of CeO2/ZnTCPP heterojunction with enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production performance

• Novel photocatalyst CeO 2 /ZnTCPP was synthesized by two-step solvothermal. • CeO 2 /ZnTCPP exhibits excellent photocatalytic hydrogen production performance. • The type-II heterojunction is favorable for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution . In this work, a two-step solvothermal method was used to design CeO 2 /ZnTCPP composites for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution . Systematic characterization including morphological, structural, optical and electrochemical measurements revealed a correlation between the sample structure and photocatalytic activity. Compared with pure CeO 2 and ZnTCPP, the optimized CeO 2 /ZnTCPP photocatalyst has good hydrogen production performance (1314.6 μmol g -1 h - 1 ). At the same time, the catalyst can still maintain a high hydrogen production rate (1162.7 µmol g - 1 h - 1 ) under visible light. The experimental results showed that the CeO 2 /ZnTCPP composites have high carrier separation efficiency, which is attributed to the formation of a type-II heterojunction in the structure between the CeO 2 and ZnTCPP.