Controlled photoinduced electron transfer from g-C3N4 to CuCdCe-LDH for efficient visible light hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Ample visible-light response and efficient charge transfers in semiconductor heterojunction are still enslaved to the limited photocatalytic water splitting. In most cases, the rational design of hybrid composites tune in atomic level interaction led to remarkable stability and superior activity. Here, this work is a systematic investigation of metal ion substitution in the LDH and LDH/g-C3N4 hybrid composites for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under visible light. The construction of heterostructure not only facilitates the charge separation and transfer owing to the formed heterojunction through band gap engineering and tunable optical properties which are inherited from morphology of as grown CuCdCe-LDH over the exfoliated g-C3N4 but also provides plenty of surface active sites due the increased surface area photostability. The CuCdCe-LDH/g-C3N4 exhibits superior HER rate of 3.5 mmolg−1h−1 with AQY of 5.78% over their binary counterparts. The density functional theory calculations also suggest that the HER activity of CuCdCe-LDH is substantially enhanced by coupling with g-C3N4 the electrochemical results leading to high photocurrent response. The high photocatalytic activity of the composite was due to efficient photoexcited charge transfer process and the synergistic effect between CuCdCe-LDH and g-C3N4. These finding will open scopes for designing inexpensive high performance materials for broad applications of photocatalytic energy conversion.