Excellent photocatalytic hydrogen production over CdS nanorods via using noble metal-free copper molybdenum sulfide (Cu2MoS4) nanosheets as co-catalysts

Abstract

Charge carrier recombination and durability issues are major problems in photocatalytic hydrogen (H-2) evolution processes. Thus, there is a very important necessitate to extend an efficient photocatalyst to control charge-carrier dynamics in the photocatalytic system. We have developed copper molybdenum sulfide (Cu2MoS4) nanosheets as co-catalysts with CdS nanorods for controlling charge carriers without recombination for use in photocatalytic H-2 evolution under simulated solar light irradiation. Effective control and utilization of charge carriers are possible by loading Cu2MoS4 nanosheets onto the CdS nanorods. The loading compensates for the restrictions of CdS, and stimulated synergistic effects, such as efficient photoexcited charge separation, lead to an improvement in photostability because of the layered structure of the Cu2MoS4 nanosheets. These layered Cu2MoS4 nanosheets have emerged as novel and active replacements for precious noble metal co-catalysts in photocatalytic H-2 production by water splitting. We have obtained superior H-2 production rates by using Cu2MoS4 loaded CdS nanorods. The physicochemical properties of the composites are analyzed by diverse characterization techniques. (C) 2016 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.