Robustly photogenerating H2 in water using FeP/CdS catalyst under solar irradiation

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 19846
• Main Authors: Cheng, Huanqing, Lv, Xiao-Jun, Cao, Shuang, Zhao, Zong-Yan, Chen, Yong, Fu, Wen-Fu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 28.01.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 140/146; 704/172/169/895; 704/2151; Crystals; Humanities and Social Sciences; Lactic acid; multidisciplinary; Nanoparticles; Photocatalysis; Photovoltaic cells; Science
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep19846

Photosplitting water for H 2 production is a promising, sustainable approach for solar-to-chemical energy conversion. However, developing low-cost, high efficient and stable photocatalysts remains the major challenge. Here we report a composite photocatalyst consisting of FeP nanoparticles and CdS nanocrystals (FeP/CdS) for photogenerating H 2 in aqueous lactic acid solution under visible light irradiation. Experimental results demonstrate that the photocatalyst is highly active with a H 2 -evolution rate of 202000 μmol h −1 g −1 for the first 5 h (106000 μmol h −1 g −1 under natural solar irradiation), which is the best H 2 evolution activity, even 3-fold higher than the control in situ photo-deposited Pt/CdS system and the corresponding to an apparent quantum efficiency of over 35% at 520 nm. More important, we found that the system exhibited excellent stability and remained effective after more than 100 h in optimal conditions under visible light irradiation. A wide-ranging analysis verified that FeP effectively separates the photoexcited charge from CdS and showed that the dual active sites in FeP enhance the activity of FeP/CdS photocatalysts.