High-efficiency and stable photocatalytic hydrogen evolution of rhenium sulfide co-catalyst on Zn0.3Cd0.7S

Abstract

Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution is an attractive technology to solve the growing energy crisis. The development of advanced photocatalysts is an attractive but challenging issue. For the first time, we use inorganic ReS₂ as a co-catalyst for Zn_0.3Cd_0.7S using a solvent thermal method, which enables highly efficient and recyclable H₂ evolution. The Zn_0.3Cd_0.7S/ReS₂ composite photocatalysts contain 4 wt% ReS₂ co-catalysts, and Na₂S–Na₂SO₃ is used as the sacrificial reagent. Compared with bare Zn_0.3Cd_0.7S, Zn_0.3Cd_0.7S/ReS₂ corresponds to 101 fold enhancement with the highest photocatalytic H₂ evolution rates of 92.45 mmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹. Furthermore, it still maintains high hydrogen production after a 30 hours cycle experiment. In this paper, the mechanism of photocatalytic enhancement is expounded by various experimental methods. In situ Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectra and online mass spectrometry were used to discover the sources of hydrogen. The experimental results show that ReS₂ is a promising joint catalyst for obtaining high-gloss catalytic hydrogen from water under visible light.