Developing hierarchical CdS/NiO hollow heterogeneous architectures for boosting photocatalytic hydrogen generation

• Published in: Nano research Vol. 15; no. 3; pp. 2003 - 2012
• Main Authors: Deng, Chonghai, Ye, Fan, Wang, Tao, Ling, Xiaohui, Peng, Lulu, Yu, Hong, Ding, Kangzhe, Hu, Hanmei, Dong, Qiang, Le, Huirong, Han, Yongsheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Tsinghua University Press 01.03.2022
• Subjects: Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Chemistry and Materials Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Electromagnetic absorption; Heterojunctions; Hydrogen; Hydrogen evolution reactions; Hydrogen production; Irradiation; Materials Science; Microspheres; Morphology; Nanoparticles; Nanotechnology; Nickel oxides; P-n junctions; Photocatalysis; Research Article; Solar energy; Synergistic effect; Thickness; Water splitting; CdS nanoparticls; NiO hollow microspheres; photocatalytic hydrogen evolution; p-n heterojunction; hierarchical structure
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-021-3960-4

The hierarchical binary CdS/NiO hollow heterogeneous architectures (HHAs) with p-n heterojunction are constructed by a facile microwave-assisted wet chemical process for high-efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) from water. The asdesigned CdS/NiO HHAs are composed of hexagonal n-type CdS nanoparticles with a size in the range of 20–40 nm attaching to cubic p-type NiO hollow microspheres (HMSs) which are aggregates of porous nanoplates with a thickness of about 20 nm. The photocatalytic water splitting over CdS/NiO HHAs is significantly increased under simulated solar irradiation, among which the most active sample of CdS/NiO-3 (the mass ratio of CdS to NiO is 1:3) exhibits the fastest photocatalytic HER rate of 1.77 mmol·g −1 ·h −1 , being 16.2 times than that of pure CdS. The boosted photocatalytic HER could be attributed to the synergistic effect on the proportional p-n heterojunction with special hierarchical hollow and porous morphology, an enhancement of visible light absorption, and an improvement of photoinduced charge separation as well as the photo-stability given by the composite heterojunction. This work shows a viable strategy to design the heterojunction with special morphology for the efficient hydrogen generation by water splitting utilizing solar energy.