Abstract

Photocatalytic decomposition of water to produce hydrogen and the degradation of organic pollutants are among the most ideal strategies for addressing energy shortages and environmental pollution. Moreover, constructing organic–inorganic heterojunctions based on surface interactions is one of the most effective strategies for enhancing photocatalytic activity. In this work, a novel II-type polyimide/zinc sulfide (PI/ZnS) heterojunction photocatalyst was successfully synthesized for the first time through a simple hydrothermal method. The influence of PI in the PI/ZnS composite material was systematically studied. The 1PI/ZnS composite shows the highest rate (587.7 μmol/g/h) of photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen production, which is approximately 19% higher than the value of ZnS (492.5 μmol/g/h), and it is 34.6 times the PI value (16.95 μmol/g/h). The degradation efficiency of the 3 PI/ZnS composite is nearly 35.5 times that of PI and nearly 1.9 times that of ZnS. The enhancement in the photocatalytic activity of the PI/ZnS photocatalyst is mainly attributed to the dense interface and II-type heterojunction between the PI and ZnS, which effectively improves the spatial separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers. This study demonstrates that the nanostructured II-type heterojunction in the PI/ZnS composite can significantly improve the photocatalytic performance of polyimide photocatalysts.

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