Dodecahedral hollow multi-shelled Co₃O₄/Ag:ZnIn₂S₄ photocatalyst for enhancing solar energy utilization efficiency

Employing semiconductor photocatalysts featuring a hollow multi-shelled (HoMs) structure to establish a heterojunction is an effective approach to addressing the issues of low light energy utilization and severe recombination of photogenerated charge carriers. To take advantage of these key factors in semiconductor photocatalysis, here, a dodecahedral HoMs Co₃O₄/Ag:ZnIn₂S₄ photocatalyst (denoted as Co₃O₄/AZIS) was firstly synthesized by coupling Ag⁺-doped ZnIn₂S₄ (AZIS) nanosheets with dodecahedral HoMs Co₃O₄. The unique HoMs structure of the photocatalyst can not only effectively promote the separation and transfer of photo-induced charge, but also improve the utilization rate of visible light, exposing rich active sites for the photocatalytic redox reaction. The photocatalytic experiment results showed that the Co₃O₄/90.0 wt% AZIS photocatalyst has a high hydrogen (H₂) production rate (695.0 μmol h^-1 g^-1) and high methyl orange (MO) degradation rate (0.4243 min^-1). This work provides a feasible strategy for the development of HoMs heterojunction photocatalysts with enhanced H₂ production and degradation properties of organic dyes.