Boosting photocatalytic hydrogen production via interfacial engineering over a Z-scheme core/shell heterojunction

Designing high efficacy photocatalysts is a promising way to improve solar fuel production efficiency. In this work, we prepared a core/shell composite of loose ZnCr layered double hydroxide nanosheets modified CdS nanorods for efficient visible light driven photocatalytic hydrogen production. The highest hydrogen production rate achieved 425.8 μmol·h⁻¹ without adding any noble metal cocatalyst under the visible light stimulus, which is 22.4 times that of 1 wt.% Pt-modified CdS. The corresponding apparent quantum yield is 13.9% at 420 nm. It is revealed that the synergistic actions of the interfacial redox shuttle of Cr³⁺/Cr^δ+ and the interfacial electric field enable the efficient separation of photoinduced charge carriers between two components via a Z-scheme energy band configuration. Meanwhile, with the hydrogen evolution contribution of Zn²⁺, a remarkable improvement in photocatalytic performance was achieved in contrast to bare CdS. This work provides an effective methodology to construct highly efficient and economically viable photocatalysts for solar H₂ production and mechanistic study.