Issue 8, 2016

Cadmium sulfide/graphitic carbon nitride heterostructure nanowire loading with a nickel hydroxide cocatalyst for highly efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production in water under visible light

Abstract

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 μmol h−1 mg−1 under visible light irradiation (λ > 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.

Graphical abstract: Cadmium sulfide/graphitic carbon nitride heterostructure nanowire loading with a nickel hydroxide cocatalyst for highly efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production in water under visible light

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Jan 2016
Accepted
14 Jan 2016
First published
19 Jan 2016

Nanoscale, 2016,8, 4748-4756

Cadmium sulfide/graphitic carbon nitride heterostructure nanowire loading with a nickel hydroxide cocatalyst for highly efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production in water under visible light

Z. Yan, Z. Sun, X. Liu, H. Jia and P. Du, Nanoscale, 2016, 8, 4748 DOI: 10.1039/C6NR00160B

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