Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Peroxide Generation Coupled with Selective Benzylamine Oxidation over Defective ZrS3 Nanobelts

Abstract Photocatalytic hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) generation represents a promising approach for artificial photosynthesis. However, the sluggish half-reaction of water oxidation significantly limits the efficiency of H2O2 generation. A substitutional reaction of oxidation with accelerated kinetics to produce value-added chemicals holds promise to tackle this challenge. Here, a benzylamine oxidation with more favorable thermodynamics is employed as the half-reaction to couple with H2O2 generation in water by using defective zirconium trisulfide (ZrS3) nanobelts as photocatalyst. The ZrS3 nanobelts with disulfide (S22-) and sulfide anion (S2-) vacancies exhibit an excellent photocatalytic performance for H2O2 generation and simultaneous oxidation of benzylamine to benzonitrile with a high selectivity of > 99%. The S22- vacancies are revealed to facilitate the separation of photogenerated charge carriers. The S2- vacancies can significantly improve the electron conduction, hole extraction, and kinetics of benzylamine oxidation. As a result, the use of defective ZrS3 nanobelts yields a high production rate of 78 and 32 µmol h-1 for H2O2 and benzonitrile, respectively, under a simulated sunlight irradiation.