Enhancement of Synergistic Photocatalytic Performance\nby Anchoring Cadmium Sulfide on Nanosphere Structured Coordination\nPolymers

Precisely\ntuning how and where a reaction occurs in a one-step\nselective system is important but challenging owing to the similar\nelectronic environments in multiple active sites. In this work, highly\nselective and effective reaction sites were obtained by generating\ncopper coordination polymers (Cu-CP) of a range of sizes and morphologies,\nfrom bulk solid crystals (<b>1</b>) to uniform nanosphere structures\n(<b>1a</b>), by controlling the amount of surfactant hexadecyl\ntrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). The results indicated that the morphology\nand size of the uniform nanosphere structures were affected by the\nproportion of CTAB; uniform distribution of nanosphere structures\nwas achieved with a premade building carrier when the content of CTAB\nwas 0.005 mmol, generating a well-established platform. Photocatalytic\ncadmium sulfide (CdS) was then immobilized on the surface of the premade\nplatform unit <b>1a</b> through an <i>in situ</i> process\nto generate <b>CdS@1a</b> composites with well-dispersed catalytic\nCdS active sites. Furthermore, the well-defined <b>CdS@1a</b> composite platform was utilized as photocatalysts to explore the\nselective one-step depolymerization reaction under blue-light irradiation.\nNotably, the <b>CdS</b><sub><b>0.149</b></sub><b>@1a</b> composite, which featured a unique structure with evenly dispersed,\nclosely spaced catalytic sites, exhibiting remarkable photoelectrochemical\nbehaviors for selective one-step depolymerization of lignin model\nsubstances to aromatic monomer phenol and acetophenone framework products.\nThis work demonstrates the use of an inherently morphological process\nto construct outstanding photocatalysts that could enable a wide range\nof photocatalytic reactions.