AUTHOR=Wei Lin , Zeng Deqian , Xie Zongzhuo , Zeng Qingru , Zheng Hongfei , Fujita Toyohisa , Wei Yuezhou TITLE=NiO Nanosheets Coupled With CdS Nanorods as 2D/1D Heterojunction for Improved Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry VOLUME=9 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2021.655583 DOI=10.3389/fchem.2021.655583 ISSN=2296-2646 ABSTRACT=

Designing low-cost, environment friendly, and highly active photocatalysts for water splitting is a promising path toward relieving energy issues. Herein, one-dimensional (1D) cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanorods are uniformly anchored onto two-dimensional (2D) NiO nanosheets to achieve enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. The optimized 2D/1D NiO/CdS photocatalyst exhibits a remarkable boosted hydrogen generation rate of 1,300 μmol h−1 g−1 under visible light, which is more than eight times higher than that of CdS nanorods. Moreover, the resultant 5% NiO/CdS composite displays excellent stability over four cycles for photocatalytic hydrogen production. The significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity of the 2D/1D NiO/CdS heterojunction can be attributed to the efficient separation of photogenerated charge carriers driven from the formation of p-n NiO/CdS heterojunction. This study paves a new way to develop 2D p-type NiO nanosheets-decorated n-type semiconductor photocatalysts for photocatalytic applications.