Low-temperature solid-state preparation of ternary CdS/g-C3N4/CuS nanocomposites for enhanced visible-light photocatalytic H2-production activity

Low-temperature solid-state method were gradually demonstrated as a high efficiency, energy saving and environmental protection strategy to fabricate composite semiconductor materials. CdS-based multiple composite photocatalytic materials have attracted increasing concern owning to the heterostructure constituents with tunable band gaps. In this study, the ternary CdS/g-C3N4/CuS composite photocatalysts were prepared by a facile and novel low-temperature solid-state strategy. The optimal ternary CdS/g-C3N4/CuS composite exhibits a high visible-light photocatalytic H-2-production rate of 57.56 mu mol h(-1) with the corresponding apparent quantum efficiency reaches 16.5% at 420 nm with Na2S/Na2SO3 mixed aqueous solution as sacrificial agent. The ternary CdSig-C3N4/CuS composites show the enhanced visible light photocatalytic H-2-evolution activity comparing with the binary CdS-based composites or simplex CdS. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is ascribed to the heterojunctions and the synergistic effect of CuS and g-C3N4 in promotion of the charge separation and charge mobility. This work shows that the low temperature solid-state method is efficient and environmentally benign for the preparation of CdS-based multiple composite photocatalytic materials with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic H-2-production activity. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.