Cadmium sulfide/graphitic carbon nitride heterostructure nanowire loading with a nickel hydroxide cocatalyst for highly efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production in water under visible light.
Photocatalytic hydrogen production from water in a noble metal free system has attracted much attention in recent years. Herein we report on the use of core/shell cadmium sulfide/graphitic carbon nitride (CdS/g C3N4) heterojunction nanorods modified by nickel hydroxide (Ni(OH)2) as a highly efficient photocatalyst for visible light driven hydrogen production from water. Due to efficient separation of the photoexcited charge carriers in the CdS/g C3N4 core/shell nanorods and the synergistic effect of Ni(OH)2, the optimal hydrogen evolution rate over Ni(OH)2 CdS/g C3N4 is 115.18 mmol h( 1) mg( 1) under visible light irradiation (l 420 nm) which is ~26 times higher than the CdS/g C3N4 nanorod composite without Ni(OH)2 and ~7 times better than the 0.5 wt% Pt CdS/g C3N4 nanorod composite. The apparent quantum efficiency is ~16.7% at an excitation of 450 nm. During photocatalysis, no degradation of Ni(OH)2 was observed based on the XPS data, indicating that it is a robust cocatalyst. Moreover, the present photocatalyst showed excellent photocatalytic stability for hydrogen production and the turnover number (TON) reached ~24,600 over 90 hours.
Nanoscale