Photocatalytic selective organic transformations (SOTs) with H-2 production in one reaction system represent a route with great promise for green and sustainable organic synthesis and clean fuel generation. In this work, a new La-ion engineering strategy was employed to elaborately fabricate Ni2P/CdLaS (NP/CLS) composite photocatalysts, which significantly improved the visible light-initiated alcohol oxidation-hydrogen production performance. The optimized 1.5% NP/CLS sample showed a maximum production rate of H-2 (15.35 mmol.h(-1)g(-1)) and aromatic aldehyde (15.83 mmol.h(-1)g(-1)) under visible light illumination (lambda >= 420 nm), which are 3.4 times higher than that of Ni2P/CdS (NP/CS) and 20 times higher than that of CLS. The apparent quantum efficiency over 1.5% NP/CLS sample could reach up to 11.22% at 450 nm. The superior performance of the photocatalytic H-2 production results over 1.5% NP/CLS sample could be mainly ascribed to the following synergistic effects. Firstly, the formed intimate Ohmic contact between NP and CLS can increase the separation speed of photo-generated charge carriers, meantime, reducing the overpotential for H-2 evolution. Secondly, the introduced La ions in NP/CLS effectively strengthen photogenerated electron transfer. The detailed physical and chemical characterization results, in-situ XPS analysis, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations provide effective support for the proposed photocatalytic reaction mechanism. This work shows a strategy with great promise to design noble-metal-free photocatalysts for high H-2 production performance. (c) 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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