Chitosan-derived carbon supported CoO combined with CdS facilitates visible light catalytic hydrogen evolution

Abstract

A CoO–CdS heterostructured photocatalyst CC-2-300 loaded with carbon derived from the biomass material chitosan was synthesized. Under visible-light irradiation, the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate can reach up to 10.60 mmol g_cat⁻¹ h⁻¹, which is 7.21 times higher than that of pure CdS under the same conditions, with good cycle stability and high apparent quantum efficiency. The control experiments and characterization results prove that the chitosan-derived carbon supported CoO nanorods and CdS nanoparticles are cross-distributed to form a direct Z-scheme heterojunction, which improves the migration efficiency of photogenerated carriers and effectively slows down the recombination rate of photogenerated charges and holes on CdS that is susceptible to photocorrosion, thus improving the efficiency of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.