Abstract
Overall solar water splitting into H2 and O2 using visible light responsive photocatalyst has been considered as a clean, green, and renewable system. CdS with a suitable bandgap (2.25 eV) and band position was for a long time not considered as a promising candidate for overall solar water splitting because of its serious photo-corrosion and rapid charge recombination, although it has considerable photocatalytic activity for H2 generation in a sacrificial agent containing electrolyte. Here, we design a new sandwich-like architecture using CdS nanorods embedded in a p-n junction of MoS2/N-RGO which serves as a novel photocatalytic system that could promote overall water splitting in natural water. It was found that the p-n junction of MoS2/N-RGO not only works as the HER and OER electrocatalyst for H2 and O2 generation respectively, but also facilitates charge separation by its inner electric field. Compared to well-defined thermodynamically favored charge transport, the new charge transfer route in MoS2/CdS/N-RGO splits natural water, resulting in an essential change of the carrier separation mechanism and high anti-corrosion.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 4803-4810 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Journal of Materials Chemistry A |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 Mar 7 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2015 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Chemistry(all)
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Materials Science(all)