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[Display omitted] • The Ni clusters accelerate the separation and transmission of the photogenerated electrons and holes. • The in-situ photoluminescence measurement confirms the Ni clusters as more active sites for hydrogen production. • The Ni/ZnIn 2 S 4 composites demonstrate remarkable hydrogen production rate. • The Ni/ZnIn 2 S 4 composites exhibit good stability and reusability. As a typical two-dimensional (2D) metal chalcogenides and visible-light responsive semiconductor, zinc indium sulfide (ZnIn 2 S 4) has attracted much attention in photocatalysis. However, the high recombination rate of photogenerated electrons and holes seriously limits its performance for hydrogen production. In this work, we report in-situ photodeposition of Ni clusters in hierarchical ZnIn 2 S 4 nanoflowers (Ni/ZnIn 2 S 4) to achieve unprecedented photocatalytic hydrogen production. The Ni clusters not only provide plenty of active sites for reactions as evidenced by in-situ photoluminescence measurement, but also effectively accelerate the separation and migration of the photogenerated electrons and holes in ZnIn 2 S 4. Consequently, the Ni/ZnIn 2 S 4 composites exhibit good stability and reusability with highly enhanced visible-light hydrogen production. In particular, the best Ni/ZnIn 2 S 4 photocatalyst exhibits an unprecedented hydrogen production rate of 22.2 mmol·h−1·g−1, 10.6 times that of the pure ZnIn 2 S 4 (2.1 mmol·h−1·g−1). And its apparent quantum yield (AQY) is as high as 56.14% under 450 nm monochromatic light. Our work here suggests that depositing non-precious Ni clusters in ZnIn 2 S 4 is quite promising for the potential practical photocatalysis in solar energy conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MoS 2 quantum dots (QDs) in-situ directing porous MoS 2 -QDs/ZnIn 2 S 4 heterostructures exhibit the H 2 production rate under visible light. Photocatalytic hydrogen (H 2) production based on semiconductors is important to utilize solar light for clean energy and environment. Herein, we report a visible light responsive heterostructure, designed and constructed by molybdenum disulfide quantum dots (MoS 2 -QDs) in-situ seeds-directing growth and self-assemble of zinc indium sulfide (ZnIn 2 S 4) nanosheet to ensure their full contact through a simple one-step solvothermal method for highly improved visible light H 2 production. The MoS 2 -QDs in-situ seeds-directing ZnIn 2 S 4 heterostructure not only builds heterojunctions between MoS 2 and ZnIn 2 S 4 to spatially separate the photogenerated electrons and holes, but also serves as the active sites trapping photogenerated electrons to facilitate H 2 evolution. As a result, MoS 2 -QDs/ZnIn 2 S 4 exhibits high photocatalytic activity for H 2 production, and the optimized 2 wt% MoS 2 -QDs/ZnIn 2 S 4 (2MoS 2 -QDs/ZnIn 2 S 4) heterostructure exhibits the highest H 2 evolution rate of 7152 umol·h−1·g−1 under visible light, ∼9 times of pure ZnIn 2 S 4. Our strategy here could shed some lights on developing noble-metal free heterostructures for highly efficient photocatalytic H 2 production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]