CdS Nanorod-Amorphous Molybdenum Oxide Nanocomposite for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

The modulation of the electronic structure of CdS/a-MoOx nanocomposite during photocatalytic hydrogen evolution is significant to improve its performance in the solar-hydrogen evolution. In this study, enhancement of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution by reforming the band structure of CdS/a-MoOx nanocomposite was achieved. In addition, the mechanism of this enhancement was investigated. The initial photoinduced electrons excited in CdS were found to display strong reduction ability and transferred to a-MoOx, in which Mo6+ was reduced to Mo5+. This transformation led to in situ electronic structure reconstruction, which was considerable for the for the promotion of photocatalytic H-2 evolution performance. For a CdS/a-MoOx-32.6 wt % nanocomposite catalyst, the hydrogen evolution rates exhibited a 16.8 -time promotion from 1.1 mmol h(-1) g(-1) to 19.3 mmol h(-1) with the progression of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. Furthermore, this rate was much bigger than that of CdS nanorods catalyst alone (h(-1) mmol g(-1) h(-1)). Therefore, this work offers a simple and practical method to tune the electronic structures in hybrid nanocomposite catalysts for improving photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance.