Cu2O Decorated with Cocatalyst MoS2 for Solar Hydrogen Production with Enhanced Efficiency under Visible Light

In this work, we have prepared a p-type semiconductor of Cu-20 decorated with MoS2 nanosheets as cocatalyst for efficient solar hydrogen production under visible light. Results show that Cu-20 decorated with 1.0 wt % MoS2 presents the maximum reduction photocurrent density of 0.17 mA cm(-2), which is 7-fold higher than pristine Cu-20. Furthermore, the as-prepared MoS2@Cu20O exhibits remarkable photostability with only 7% loss of its original photocurrent after 9 h of continuous work. The excellent performance of MoS2@Cu-20 is ascribed to the introduction of active sites of MoS2 nanosheets as cocatalyst to the surface of Cu-20 nanoparticles, which activates the photocatalyst by lowering the electrochemical proton reduction overpotential and also inhibits photoinduced corrosion during the measurement.