Fabrication of oxygen vacancy rich ultrafine ceria nanocubes decorated one dimensional CdS heteronanostructures for efficient visible light driven hydrogen evolution reaction

The fabrication of heterostructures is considered as a unique approach to realize the proficient charge separation and higher photocatalytic activity. Herein, we have successfully designed a Type-II heterostructured photocatalyst system based on CeO2 nanocubes anchored one dimensional CdS nanorods (1D CdS NRs) for visible photocatalytic H2 evolution reaction. Systematical characterizations including morphological, structural, optical and electrochemical measurements, firmly divulge the correlation between structures and photocatalytic activity of samples. The heterojunctions between nanorods and nanocubes result in the formation of CdS-CeO2 heteronanostructures (CdS-CeO2 HNSs) with unique band structures that lead to a Type-II heterojunction with efficient charge carriers’ separation. The optimized CdS-CeO2 HNS photocatalyst displays an excellent H2 evolution activity of 10.5 mmol/g/h and high stability. This superior performance is attributed to the efficient photoexcited charge carriers separation, suppressed recombination rate and strong hybridization between CdS and CeO2 components.