Synergistic effects of cocatalyst and homojunction/heterojunction with boosted photocatalytic H2 evolution over Zn0.5Cd0.5S/NDs

For improved photocatalytic hydrogen evolution, building heterojunction structures has been considered as a promising strategy to promote charge separation and transportation. Herein, an in-situ hydrothermal process was used to prepare the novel twin Zn0.5Cd0.5S/NDs (ZCND-x) homojunction/heterojunction photocatalyst of nanodiamonds (NDs) dots anchored twin Zn0.5Cd0.5S (T-ZCS). Among all the composites, the ZCND-10 hybrid exhibits a much higher H2 performance of 160.035 mmol/g/h with a mixture of Na2S and Na2SO3 (pH = 13.82) as hole eliminator agent, which is considerably 5.3 times that of pure T-ZCS nanoparticles. Furthermore, the optimum apparent quantum yield (AQY) of ZCND-10 is up to 32.42% at & lambda; = 420 & PLUSMN; 15 nm. At the same time, ZNCD-10 heterojunction owns excellent H2 evolution cycle activity and photostability. Simultaneously, photo-catalyst depicts good photocatalytic overall water splitting performance. Meanwhile, experimental character-ization results indicate extend light response, high surface area, as well as accelerate charge separation of homojunction/heterojunction induced phase junctions by the interfacial synergistic effect between T-ZCS and NDs, endowed with excellent H2 evolution performance and chemical stability. Theoretical work functions, electron density distribution and in-situ XPS further clarify the electron transfer pathway between T-ZCS and NDs. The potential mechanism of photocatalytic enhancement of ZCND-x hybrid is proposed, which may lead to a new thinking for the efficient preparation of other photocatalytic materials.