NiO Nanosheets Coupled With CdS Nanorods as 2D/1D Heterojunction for Improved Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Lin Wei; Deqian Zeng; Zongzhuo Xie; Qingru Zeng; Hongfei Zheng; Toyohisa Fujita; Yuezhou Wei

doi:10.3389/fchem.2021.655583

NiO Nanosheets Coupled With CdS Nanorods as 2D/1D Heterojunction for Improved Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Front Chem. 2021 Apr 15:9:655583. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2021.655583. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Lin Wei¹, Deqian Zeng¹, Zongzhuo Xie¹, Qingru Zeng¹, Hongfei Zheng², Toyohisa Fujita¹, Yuezhou Wei¹

Affiliations

¹ Guangxi Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-ferrous Metals and Featured Materials, School of Resources, Environment and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning, China.
² Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.

Abstract

Designing low-cost, environment friendly, and highly active photocatalysts for water splitting is a promising path toward relieving energy issues. Herein, one-dimensional (1D) cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanorods are uniformly anchored onto two-dimensional (2D) NiO nanosheets to achieve enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. The optimized 2D/1D NiO/CdS photocatalyst exhibits a remarkable boosted hydrogen generation rate of 1,300 μmol h^-1 g^-1 under visible light, which is more than eight times higher than that of CdS nanorods. Moreover, the resultant 5% NiO/CdS composite displays excellent stability over four cycles for photocatalytic hydrogen production. The significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity of the 2D/1D NiO/CdS heterojunction can be attributed to the efficient separation of photogenerated charge carriers driven from the formation of p-n NiO/CdS heterojunction. This study paves a new way to develop 2D p-type NiO nanosheets-decorated n-type semiconductor photocatalysts for photocatalytic applications.

Keywords: CdS nanorods; NiO nanosheets; nanocomposites; p-n heterojunction; photocatalytic hydrogen generation.