Abstract
One dimensional (1D) metal sulfide nanostructures are one of the most promising materials for photocatalytic water splitting reactions to produce hydrogen (H2). However, tuning the nanostructural, optical, electrical and chemical properties of metal sulfides is a challenging task for the fabrication of highly efficient photocatalysts. Herein, 1D CdS nanorods (NRs) were synthesized by a facile and low-cost solvothermal method, in which reaction time played a significant role for increasing the length of CdS NRs from 100 nm to several micrometers. It is confirmed that as the length of CdS NR increases, the visible photocatalytic H2 evolution activity also increases and the CdS NR sample obtained at 18 hr. reaction time exhibited the highest H2 evolution activity of 206.07 μmol.g−1.h−1. The higher H2 evolution activity is explained by the improved optical absorption properties, enhanced electronic bandstructure and decreased electron-hole recombination rate.
Highlights
The yearning for renewable and sustainable energy, as well as environmental protection, has initiated tremendous research interest in photocatalysis, in which sunlight is used as a primary energy source
Metal sulfides are considered as good candidates and among the various metal sulfide semiconductor photocatalysts, cadmium sulfide (CdS) has been widely explored as a visible light photocatalyst due to its narrow bandgap, proper bandstructures and higher negative conduction band edge position than H+/H2 redox potential [16,17]
As the H2 evolution activity of CdS materials continue to increase, several CdS nanostructures have been proposed for the efficient photocatalytic H2 evolution reactions [18,19,20,21,22,23]
Summary
The yearning for renewable and sustainable energy, as well as environmental protection, has initiated tremendous research interest in photocatalysis, in which sunlight is used as a primary energy source. It is testified that the photocatalytic H2 evolution activity of CdS greatly depends on its crystal structure, morphology, crystallinity and size [24], and all these parameters directly impact the band structures, bandgap energy and further electron-hole separation processes. The quality of produced CdS NRs in the above reports is very poor since the final product contains a mixture of nanoparticles, nanosheets and nanorods instead of a single morphology. These types of products impede the photogenerated charge carriers’ separation and electron transfer process, producing lower photocatalytic activity. The effect of CdS NR length on the photocatalytic H2 evolution activity was systematically investigated
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