MoS₂/CdS Nanosheets-on-Nanorod Heterostructure for Highly Efficient Photocatalytic H₂ Generation under Visible Light Irradiation

Semiconductor-based photocatalytic H₂ generation as a direct approach of converting solar energy to fuel is attractive for tackling the global energy and environmental issues but still suffers from low efficiency. Here, we report a MoS₂/CdS nanohybrid as a noble-metal-free efficient visible-light driven photocatalyst, which has the unique nanosheets-on-nanorod heterostructure with partially crystalline MoS₂ nanosheets intimately but discretely growing on single-crystalline CdS nanorod. This heterostructure not only facilitates the charge separation and transfer owing to the formed heterojunction, shorter radial transfer path, and fewer defects in single-crystalline nanorod, thus effectively reducing the charge recombination, but also provides plenty of active sites for hydrogen evolution reaction due to partially crystalline structure of MoS₂ as well as enough room for hole extraction. As a result, the MoS₂/CdS nanosheets-on-nanorod exhibits a state-of-the-art H₂ evolution rate of 49.80 mmol g^–1 h^–1 and an apparent quantum yield of 41.37% at 420 nm, which is the advanced performance among all MoS₂/CdS composites and CdS/noble metal photocatalysts. These findings will open opportunities for developing low-cost efficient photocatalysts for water splitting