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 H2 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 g–1 with the progression of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. Furthermore, this rate was much bigger than that of CdS nanorods catalyst alone (1.1 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.