Drastic Layer‐Number‐Dependent Activity Enhancement in Photocatalytic H2 Evolution over nMoS2/CdS (n ≥ 1) Under Visible Light

Abstract

Exploiting noble‐metal‐free cocatalysts is of huge interest for photocatalytic water splitting using solar energy. As an efficient cocatalyst in photocatalysis, MoS2 is shown promise as a low‐cost alternative to Pt for hydrogen evolution. Here we report a systematical study on controlled synthesis of MoS2 with layer number ranging from ≈1 to 112 and their activities for photocatalytic H2 evolution over commercial CdS. A drastic increase in photocatalytic H2 evolution is observed with decreasing MoS2 layer number. Particularly for the single‐layer (SL) MoS2, the SL‐MoS2/CdS sample reaches a high H2 generation rate of ≈2.01 × 10−3m h−1 in Na2S–Na2SO3 solutions and ≈2.59 × 10−3m h−1 in lactic acid solutions, corresponding to an apparent quantum efficiency of 30.2% and 38.4% at 420 nm, respectively. In addition to the more exposed edges and unsaturated active S atoms, valence band–XPS and Mott–Schottky plots analysis indicate that the SL MoS2 has the more negative conduction band energy level than the H+/H2 potential, facilitating the hydrogen reduction.