Zhenyuan Teng's research while affiliated with Nanyang Normal University and other places

... As shown in Figure 1b-d, the typical morphology of Co 1 -SNC is sheet-like thin layer with no obviously observed nanoparticles. In Figure 1e, the bright dots can be assigned to the monodispersed Co atoms [19] . Moreover, the elemental mapping and line scan further reveal the uniform distribution of C, N, S, and Co elements on the Co 1 -SNC catalyst (Figures 1f and g). ...

... To further confirm the charge transfer property, steady-state photoluminescence (PL) and time-resolved PL (TR-PL) spectra were recorded with an emission peak at 457 nm. In the PL spectra (Fig. 8c), CN NSs exhibit the strongest emission signal, indicating rapid charge carrier recombination 61 . On the other hand, BNPS shows only weak PL signals when excited at 272 nm (Fig. 8c) and 501 nm (Fig. S13). ...

... Moreover, Bi-based photocatalysts like BiOX (COOH, X = I, Br, Cl), Bi 5 O 7 I, Bi 2 WO 6 , Bi 2 O 3 , Bi 2 MoO 6 , and BiVO 4 have attracted more interest in photo-treatment due to their high chemical stability, nontoxicity, and economic synthesis technology [18]. One of them, bismuth oxybromide (BiOBr), has proven to be one of the most effective solarlight-responsive semiconductors, which has great potential in the photocatalytic treatment of non-biodegradable and toxic substances such as antibiotics and other persistent organic pollutants [19,20]. ...

... Generally, the Heyrovsky step occurs when there is a low H* coverage, otherwise the Tafel step occurs [48][49][50]. The rate−determining steps can be judged by measuring the Tafel slope values, where 120, 40, and 30 mV dec −1 correspond to Volmer, Heyovsky, or Tafel reactions, respectively [51][52][53]. Moreover, the low H* adsorption free energy (| G H* | close to zero) points toward a better inner activity in the density functional theory [54][55][56][57]. ...

... Defects in MOFs and MOF derivatives can improve the photocatalytic ability of the materials mainly through two aspects: inhibition of electron-hole complexation and optimization of the energy band structure [160,161] . Additionally, two parts of the energy barrier are involved in the photocatalytic process: the absorption of light by the ligand (E abs ) and the energy required to transfer photogenerated electrons to the unoccupied d orbitals of the metal (E LMCT ). ...

... In spite of the adoption of new energy strategies in recent years, the use of conventional fuels remains dominant. As a result of the combustion of sulfur-containing fuels, SO x is produced, which contributes to acid rain and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5), as well as corrosion of engines and catalytic converters [8][9][10][11] . Globally, strict regulations have been enacted to limit fuels with low sulfur content 12,13 . ...

... To date, various semiconducting materials have been explored for photocatalytic H 2 O 2 production. Examples include metal oxide (TiO 2 , BiVO 4 ) [18][19][20], g-C 3 N 4 [21][22][23][24], metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) [25,26], porous organic polymers (POPs) [27], covalent triazine frameworks (CTFs) [28], covalent organic frameworks (COFs) [11,27,28], and polymer semiconductors [29,30]. Notably, COFs and POPs [31] have recently emerged as promising photocatalysts for lightdriven H 2 O 2 production due to their high molar absorption coefficient, regular porous structure, and readily tunable optoelectronic properties beneficial for efficient mass transport and light-harvesting [32][33][34][35]. ...

... Cupper bismuth sulfide (Cu 3 BiS 3 ), known as Wittichenite, is an interesting p-type semiconductor with an energy gap of 1.2 eV. Consequently, this small-energy gap semiconductor has been used for heterogeneous hydrogen generation, H 2 O 2 production, and wastewater detoxification reactions (Zhong et al., 2015) (Li et al., 2018) (Wang et al., 2021a) (Chen et al., 2022a) (Olatunde and Onwudiwe, 2022). ...

... [6][7][8] Among the reported photocatalyst, graphitic carbon nitrides (g-C 3 N 4 ) have been investigated extensively owing to their unique features, such as excellent chemical stability, convenient preparation, suitable band gap for visible light, structural modification and morphological tuning, higher selectivity for 2e À ORR, and so forth and emerging as promising candidate for practical application. [9][10][11][12][13] Nevertheless, there is still some challenges confronted such as the limited visible-light absorption, low substrate accessibility, high charge carriers recombination originated from its disordered and amorphous structure, poor charge transfer between the layers, the reverse reaction of produced H 2 O 2 on catalytic active sites, starting from pure water and using isopropanol as sacrificial agent, the generated hole as waste, and so on. More importantly, if a large amount freshwater was used for H 2 O 2 production, undoubtedly, it might cause the shortage of freshwater on Earth, which will have influence on human normal social life. ...

... However, most transition metal elements with partially filled d bands, including Fe, Mn, Ni, Co, and Cu, can cause high-rate recombination of photogenerated charge carriers [14]. Teng et al., [15] reported that constructing SACs with a fully occupied d orbital can achieve efficient charge separation by preventing the creation of an intermediate band. This would be conducive to the photocatalytic synthesis of H 2 O 2 through the pathway of the 2e − ORR. ...