Cobalt phosphide microspheres integrated with cadmium sulfide nanowires as an efficient photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

In this work, we construct a well-designed integrated photocatalyst with massive specific surface area of active sites for high-efficiency photocatalytic splitting water. Taking CdS/Co2P as a case, we first put forward a typical one-step hydrothermal strategy to synthesize cobalt phosphide (Co2P) microspheres within 3 h and obtain one-dimensional cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanowires deposition on Co2P microspheres at room temperature. Under optimal conditions, 50 mg photocatalyst nanocomposite can show the highest rate for H-2 evolution was 723 mu mol h(-1) which is about 360 times greater than that of pure Co2P microspheres under visible light, and the highest quantum efficiency (QE) of 23.6% is achieved at 470 nm. The system shows extraordinarily high activity and great stability. Meanwhile, the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution mechanism of photocatalyst nano-composites is also proposed and discussed. To our knowledge, it has been rarely reported that a green and rapid one-step hydrothermal synthesis route for pure phase metal phosphide and applying photocatalyst based on an earth-abundant ideal metal phosphide in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution to date.