A novel ultraefficient non-noble metal composite cocatalyst Mo2N/Mo2C/graphene for enhanced photocatalytic H2 evolution

Non-noble metal cocatalyst is a hot research issue in photocatalytic H-2 production due to its low cost and potential substitution of the usually used expensive noble metal cocatalyst. Here, we reported a new non-noble metal cocatalyst Mo2N/Mo2C/graphene (GR) for ultraefficiently enhanced photocatalytic H-2 production of CdS under visible light irradiation. The optimum composite 2.0 wt % Mo2N/Mo2C/GR/CdS achieves an ultrahigh H-2 evolution rate of 4520 mu mol/h/g, which is 18 times higher than that of CdS alone and 3.6 times higher than the optimum 1.0 wt % Pt/CdS. The XRD shifts and HRTEM demonstrates the special structure (heterojunction) between the interfaces of Mo2N and Mo2C, which mainly accounts for the ultraefficience of Mo2N/Mo2C/GR. This study firstly presents a novel ultraefficient non-noble metal cocatalyst Mo2N/Mo2C/GR and reveals the interface effects among the compositions of the cocatalyst. (C) 2017 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.