Recently, the Ming-Hua Zeng team from the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (School of Carbon Neutrality Future Technology) at Shantou University made new progress in the research field of "Coordination Cluster Assembly and Application". The related research findings were published under the title "Phosphorene Dominated Integrative Dual-Electric Field Guiding Charge Flow and Active Centers for Vapor-fed Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution" in the top journal "Nature Communications" (impact factor 18.1) in the field of inorganic chemistry.
Authors:
Xi Wu, Jingang Song, Jinying Zhang, Haiyan Su, Tianyi Ma, Ming-Hua Zeng*, Bin Zhang*, Fuxiang Zhang* and Xin Wang*
Paper information:
Nat. Comms. 2026, 17, 9441.
Paper link:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76421-7
English abstract of the paper:
Manipulating oriented electron flow and tailored reaction microenvironments in radial-unguided two-dimensional phosphorene remains challenging. Here, we show that Rh-decorated violet/black phosphorus heterostructures, engineered with integrative dual-electric fields from cooperative phase and fringing electric field, enable efficient vapor-fed photocatalytic hydrogen production. This dual-electric field establishes a strong intrinsic charge driving force and edge charge ordering. The vapor-fed gas–solid system minimizes interfacial diffusion barriers and solvent shielding, allowing the field to steer photoelectrons and interact with H2O molecules at the edge-located Rh active centers. Analyses reveal that the integrative dual-electric field strengthens polarization and overcomes the water dissociation barrier at the gas–solid interface. The optimized catalyst achieves a H2-generation rate of 5218.7 μmol g−1 h−1 under simulated sunlight, roughly 2.4 times conventional liquid–solid systems. This work demonstrates that synergy between integrative dual-electric fields and the gas–solid microenvironment overcome the kinetic limitations of phosphorene-based photocatalysts for efficient solar-driven hydrogen conversion.
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