| Popis: |
Driven by the necessity of a sustainable living of future generations, semiconductor-based photocatalysis gained increasing attention in various research fields like green energy conversion or pollutant degradation. Neat semiconductors are often found to be rather inactive due to insufficient valence/conduction band potentials, short carrier lifetime and mobility, demanding noble metal cocatalysts and/or heterojunctions with other semiconductors. A famous example for an efficient neat photocatalyst is often found in Zinc Sulfide due to its beneficial photophysical properties concerning charge carrier formation, high activity in water reduction without precious cocatalysts, and earth-abundance. Unfortunately, the high susceptibility of ZnS and its paramount role to photocorrosion is often neglected or only addressed in passing. To circumvent the low photostability of ZnS, the addition of sacrificial agents before photocatalytic testing is state-of-the-art but appears to stand without question in most publications. Using sacrificial agents is however far from reasonable as the former are constantly consumed in substantial amounts rendering the commonly claimed arguments of sustainability and economic feasibility of ZnS a potential misconception worth critically reviewing. Hence, with this review, we take a step back to objectively but also critically review the facts regarding photocorrosion and applicability of Zinc Sulfide photocatalysis. |
