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Nowadays, photocatalytic technologies are regarded as promising strategies to solve energy problems, and various photocatalysts have been synthesized and explored. In this paper, a novel CdS/MoO2@Mo2C-MXene photocatalyst for H2 production was constructed by a two-step hydrothermal method, where MoO2@Mo2C-MXene acted as a binary co-catalyst. In the first hydrothermal step, MoO2 crystals with an egged shape grew on the surface of two-dimensional (2D) Mo2C MXene via an oxidation process in HCl aqueous solution. In the second hydrothermal step, CdS nanorods were uniformly assembled on the surface of MoO2@Mo2C-MXene in ethylenediamine with an inorganic cadmium source and organic sulfur source. The CdS/MoO2@Mo2C-MXene composite with MoO2@Mo2C-MXene of 5 wt% exhibits an ultrahigh visible-light photocatalytic H2 production activity of 22,672 μmol/(g·h), which is ~21% higher than that of CdS/Mo2C-MXene. In the CdS/MoO2@Mo2C-MXene composite, the MoO2 with metallic nature separates CdS and Mo2C MXene, which acts as an electron-transport bridge between CdS and Mo2C MXene to accelerate the photoinduced electron transferring. Moreover, the energy band structure of CdS was changed by MoO2@Mo2C-MXene to suppress the recombination of photogenerated carriers. This novel compound delivers upgraded photocatalytic H2 evolution performance and a new pathway of preparing the low-cost photocatalyst to solve energy problems in the future.


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Construction and performance of CdS/MoO2@Mo2C-MXene photocatalyst for H2 production

Show Author's information Sen JINHuijuan JINGLibo WANGQianku HUAiguo ZHOU( )
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454003, China

Abstract

Nowadays, photocatalytic technologies are regarded as promising strategies to solve energy problems, and various photocatalysts have been synthesized and explored. In this paper, a novel CdS/MoO2@Mo2C-MXene photocatalyst for H2 production was constructed by a two-step hydrothermal method, where MoO2@Mo2C-MXene acted as a binary co-catalyst. In the first hydrothermal step, MoO2 crystals with an egged shape grew on the surface of two-dimensional (2D) Mo2C MXene via an oxidation process in HCl aqueous solution. In the second hydrothermal step, CdS nanorods were uniformly assembled on the surface of MoO2@Mo2C-MXene in ethylenediamine with an inorganic cadmium source and organic sulfur source. The CdS/MoO2@Mo2C-MXene composite with MoO2@Mo2C-MXene of 5 wt% exhibits an ultrahigh visible-light photocatalytic H2 production activity of 22,672 μmol/(g·h), which is ~21% higher than that of CdS/Mo2C-MXene. In the CdS/MoO2@Mo2C-MXene composite, the MoO2 with metallic nature separates CdS and Mo2C MXene, which acts as an electron-transport bridge between CdS and Mo2C MXene to accelerate the photoinduced electron transferring. Moreover, the energy band structure of CdS was changed by MoO2@Mo2C-MXene to suppress the recombination of photogenerated carriers. This novel compound delivers upgraded photocatalytic H2 evolution performance and a new pathway of preparing the low-cost photocatalyst to solve energy problems in the future.

Keywords: photocatalysis, MoO2, H2 production, CdS, Mo2C MXene

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Received: 20 April 2022
Revised: 12 June 2022
Accepted: 15 June 2022
Published: 04 August 2022
Issue date: September 2022

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© The Author(s) 2022.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51772077), Program for Innovative Research Team (in Science and Technology) in the University of Henan Province (No. 19IRTSTHN027), Fundamental Research Funds for the Universities of Henan Province (No. NSFRF200101), and Henan Key Laboratory of Materials on Deep-Earth Engineering (No. MDE2019-02).

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