Study on the relationship between Bi₂S₃ with different morphologies and its photocatalytic hydrogen production performance

The morphology of a material is considered one of the primary aspects affecting its photocatalytic performance. Various methods have been developed to tailor the morphology of photocatalytic materials for photocatalytic water splitting. Bi2S3 is an excellent photoabsorption material with relatively narrow band gaps. Herein, Bi2S3 samples with different morphologies are successfully prepared via a simple one-step hydrothermal method and employed effectively as visible light-driven photocatalysts for hydrogen production. Electron microscopy technologies were used to characterize the morphology and microstructure of the Bi2S3 samples, which exhibit three kinds of morphologies, namely nanotubes, nanoflowers and nanorods. As a result, the Bi2S3 nanotubes have the largest BET specific surface area and lowest PL intensity, and these characteristics lead to having the best hydrogen production rate. Moreover, the catalysis mechanism is simply explained by studying the relationship between the morphology and microstructure of a material and its photocatalytic performance.