Spatial charge separation enable Ni2P/Zn0.3Cd0.7S performance of cellulose photoreforming

The Biomass photoreforming is emerging as an alternative and promising technology to simultaneously produce value-added chemicals and solar fuels. However, photoreforming of the biomass macromolecular remains a great challenge due to the lack of bifunctional photocatalyst and insight of detailed mechanism. Herein, we design the Ni 2 P onto the two-dimension Zn 0.3 Cd 0.7 S (Ni 2 P/ZCS) as the electron migration layer to realize the spatial separation of photogenerated carrier, which facilitates the depth investigation on the redox reaction. As a result, the Ni 2 P/ZCS exhibited dually catalytic performance (9.16 mmol g −1 h −1 of H 2 generation along with 1.48 mmol g −1 h −1 of lactic acid production) from cellulose photoreforming. Systematic experiments and density functional theory (DFT) were performed to reveal the bifunctionality and detailed mechanism. This work demonstrates a well concept on biomass photoreforming with the rational design of bifunctional photocatalysts.