Abstract
Design and preparation of noble-metal-free photocatalysts is of great importance for photocatalytic water splitting harvesting solar energy. Here, we report the high visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution upon the hybrid photocatalyst system consisting of CdS nanocrystals and Ni@NiO nanoparticles grown on the surface of g-C3N4. The hybrid system shows a high H2-production rate of 1258.7 μmol h−1 g−1 in the presence of triethanolamine as a sacrificial electron donor under visible light irradiation. The synergetic catalytic mechanism has been studied and the results of photovoltaic and photoluminescence properties show that efficient electron transfer could be achieved from g-C3N4 to CdS nanocrystals and subsequently to Ni@NiO hybrid.
Highlights
Cadmium sulfide (CdS), an attractive semiconductor sensitive to visible light, has been extensively studied for H2 evolution due to its narrow band gap and favorable band structure[5,6,7]
We report a Ni@NiO/CdS/g-C3N4 synergetic catalytic system, which investigated by presenting the excellent photocatalytic evolution properties and the enhanced photocatalytic activity mechanism
A slight C-C X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) peak shifts to higher binding energy, which can be ascribed to the chemical bonding between g-C3N4 and Ni/CdS
Summary
Cadmium sulfide (CdS), an attractive semiconductor sensitive to visible light, has been extensively studied for H2 evolution due to its narrow band gap and favorable band structure[5,6,7]. Agegnehu et al found that ultrafine Ni nanoparticles loaded on graphene oxide (GO) sheets shows high photocatalytic properties for water splitting due to the easy transfer of photo-induced electrons from the GO photocatalyst to the Ni cocatalyst[12]. To the best of our knowledge, there are no existing reports on the investigation of such a promising Ni@ NiO/CdS/g-C3N4 system Inspired by such these factors, the central goal of our current work is to improve the photocatalytic H2-production of g-C3N4 and explore the transfer of photo-induced charges in detail. Range of light absorption character of CdS together with the efficient electron transfer from g-C3N4 to CdS nanoparticles and subsequently to Ni@NiO hybrid, attribute to the high photocatalytic H2 evolution activity of this composite photocatalytic system. The rate of H2 evolution of the optimized Ni@NiO/CdS/g-C3N4 is 486 times higher than that of pristine g-C3N4 and high stability can be achieved in these hybrid materials
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