Boosting photocatalytic hydrogen production via interfacial engineering over a Z-scheme core/shell heterojunction

Designing high efficacy photocatalysts is a promising way to improve solar fuel production efficiency. In this work, we prepared a core/shell composite of loose ZnCr layered double hydroxide nanosheets modified CdS nanorods for efficient visible light driven photocatalytic hydrogen production. The highest hydrogen production rate achieved 425.8 µmol·h−1 without adding any noble metal cocatalyst under the visible light stimulus, which is 22.4 times that of 1 wt.% Pt-modified CdS. The corresponding apparent quantum yield is 13.9% at 420 nm. It is revealed that the synergistic actions of the interfacial redox shuttle of Cr3+/Crδ+ and the interfacial electric field enable the efficient separation of photoinduced charge carriers between two components via a Z-scheme energy band configuration. Meanwhile, with the hydrogen evolution contribution of Zn2+, a remarkable improvement in photocatalytic performance was achieved in contrast to bare CdS. This work provides an effective methodology to construct highly efficient and economically viable photocatalysts for solar H2 production and mechanistic study.