In situ construction of Ni-based N doped porous carbon induced by sulfurization or phosphorization for synergistically enhanced photo/electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Herein, two novel 3D porous Ni-based N doped carbon heterojunctions (NiS2@NC or Ni2P@NC) were successfully prepared through in situ carbonization and sulfurization or phosphorization by using flower-like Ni-based zeolite imidazolium framework as a precursor. Physiochemical and photoelectrochemical properties were investigated to explore photoinduced charge separation and transfer in the heterojunction. Meanwhile, the photo/electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution performances were evaluated systematically. In contrast to the controlled Ni-ZIF and Ni@NC composites, the expected flower-like NiS2@NC compounds show significantly enhanced photo/electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution performances, which is 13.8 times that of Ni-ZIF and 1.8 times that of Ni@NC. Furthermore, a phosphorus-decorated composite (Ni2P@NC) was synthesized for better comparison, which also displays apparently improved photo/electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution activities. The findings present that the synergistic effect of S doping and semiconducting NiS2 formation take responsibility for the enhancement of H2 generation over the NiS2@NC hybrids. This work can provide a new strategy to construct efficient ZIFs-based photo/electrocatalysts with high performance of H2 production.