Study on the hydrogen production properties and electron transfer mechanism of CdS/WO3 composite photocatalyst

In this paper, CdS nanoparticles with uniform grain sizes of 40–80 nm were prepared using oleic acid and oleylamine as surfactants by a hydrothermal method. Then, to promote the separation of charge carriers, CdS nanoparticles were loaded on WO3 nanorods to obtained CdS/WO3 heterojunction photocatalyst by a self-assemble method. The structure of CdS/WO3 was studied by XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS and zeta potential. In addition, the photocatalytic performance of CdS/WO3 was researched by UV–Vis, PL spectra and H2 evolution tests under visible light. The results showed that constructing heterojunction improved the separation of charge carriers and the hydrogen evolution rate of CdS/WO3 (mass ratio = 1:3) was up to 35.48 μmol/g/h, which is the best and 68.39% higher than pure CdS. What's more, it was determined that the electronic migration mechanism in CdS/WO3 is the Z-scheme by analyzing the results of H2 evolution tests and EPR.