Hole scavenger redox potentials determine quantum efficiency and stability of Pt-decorated CdS nanorods for photocatalytic hydrogen generation

We use Pt-decorated CdS nanorods for photocatalytic hydrogen generation in the presence of sacrificial hole scavengers. Both the quantum efficiency for hydrogen generation and the stability of the colloidal nanocrystals in solution improve with increasing redox potential of the hole scavenger. The higher redox potential leads to faster hole scavenging, which increases quantum efficiency and stability since electron hole recombination and oxidation of the CdS become less important. The quantum efficiencies can be tuned over more than an order of magnitude. This finding is important for choosing hole scavengers and for comparing efficiencies and stabilities for different photocatalytic nanosystems. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4723575]