Z-scheme CdS/WO₃ on a carbon cloth enabling effective hydrogen evolution

Abstract

Photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen (H₂) generation is a potential strategy to solve the problem of energy crisis and environmental deterioration. However, powder-like photocatalysts are difficult to recycle, and the agglomeration of particles would affect the photocatalytic activity. Herein, a direct Z-scheme CdS/WO₃ composite photocatalyst was fabricated based on carbon cloth through a two-step process. With the support of carbon cloth, photocatalysts tend to grow uniformly for further applications. The experimental results showed that the H₂ yield of adding one piece of CdS/WO₃ composite material was 17.28 μmol/h, which was 5.5 times as compared to that of pure CdS-loaded carbon cloth material. A cycle experiment was conducted to verify the stability of the as-prepared material and the result demonstrated that the H₂ generation performance of CdS/WO₃ decreased slightly after 3 cycles. This work provides new ideas for the development of recyclable photocatalysts and has a positive significance for practical applications.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

photocatalysis / CdS/WO₃ / carbon cloth / Z-scheme / hydrogen evolution

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21972040), the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (B20031), the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (2021-01-07-00-02-E00106), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (20DZ2250400), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Electronic Supplementary Material

ƒSupplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-021-0768-6 and is accessible for authorized users.

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