Recently, research group of Han Xiguang, from School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Jiangsu Normal University, made an important progress on Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution. This result has been released on the international top journal Advanced Energy Materials with the title of Nitrogen-Doped Carbon-Coated CuO-In2O3 p-n Heterojunction for Remarkable Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution. Established in 2011, Advanced Energy Materials is an international, interdisciplinary, English-language forum of original peer-reviewed contributions on materials used in all forms of energy harvesting, conversion and storage. With a 2018 Journal Impact Factor of 24.884 (Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics,2019)), Advanced Energy Materials is a prime source for the best energy-related research.The first-author was Associate Professor Sun Liming with co-author Zhuang Yuan, students of Class of 2021 of School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Jiangsu Normal University. Prof. Han Xiguang of Jiangsu Normal University and Prof. Y. L. Zhao of Nanyang Technological University were co-correspondent authors.
“CuO as a catalyst has shown promising application prospects in photocatalytic splitting of water into hydrogen (H2). However, the instability of CuO in amine aqueous solution limits the applications of CuO‐based photocatalysts in the photocatalytic H2 evolution. In this work, a novel dodecahedral nitrogen (N)‐dopedcarbon (C) coated CuO‐In2O3 p–nheterojunction (DNCPH) is designed and synthesized by directly pyrolyzingbenzimidazole‐modified dodecahedral Cu/In‐based metal‐organic frameworks, showing long‐termstability in triethanolamine (TEOA) aqueous solution and excellent photocatalytic H2 production efficiency. The improved stability of DNCPHin TEOA solution is ascribed to the alleviation of electron deficiency in CuO by forming the p–n heterojunction and the protection with coated N‐doped C layer. Based on detailed theoretical calculations and experimental studies, it is found that the improved separation efficiency of photogenerated electron/hole pairs and the mediated adsorption behavior (|∆GH*|→0) by coupling N‐dopedC layer with CuO‐In2O3 p–nheterojunction lead to the excellent photocatalytic H2 production efficiency of DNCPH. This work provides a feasible strategy for effective lyapplying CuO‐based photocatalysts in photocatalytic H2 production.”