In‐situ construction of tubular core–shell noble‐metal‐free CMT@TiO 2 /ZnIn 2 S 4 S‐scheme heterojunction for superior photothermal‐photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Abstract Developing efficient and stable photocatalysts for hydrogen generation still remains a huge challenge. Herein, we adopted Cynanchum fibers as a carbon source and substrate to construct a ternary hollow core–shell carbon microtubes@TiO 2 /ZnIn 2 S 4 (denoted as CMT@TiO 2 /ZnIn 2 S 4 ) for photothermal‐assisted photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (PHE). For the catalyst system, ZnIn 2 S 4 is the main visible light absorber, TiO 2 is introduced to form a heterojunction with ZnIn 2 S 4 to facilitate the separation of photogenerated carriers, and hollow CMT derived from Cynanchum fibers serves as a conductive scaffold and a photothermal core to elevate the surface temperature of the localized reaction system. Benefiting from the rationally designed multicomponents and microstructures, the photocatalyst proposed enhanced PHE activity of 9.71 mmol·g −1 ·h −1 , which was 30.3, 2.7 and 1.5 times higher than those of binary CMT@TiO 2 , pristine ZnIn 2 S 4 and TiO 2 /ZnIn 2 S 4 composite, respectively. The outperformed PHE activity of CMT@TiO 2 /ZnIn 2 S 4 could be ascribed to the synergy of the formation of intimate heterointerface, the CMT‐induced photothermal effect and the hierarchical core–shell architecture. This work provides a promising approach for constructing efficient and durable photocatalysts for H 2 evolution.