MoSx Coated Copper Nanowire on Copper Foam as A Highly Stable Photoelectrode for Enhanced Photoelectrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction via. Plasmon-Induced Hot Carriers

We prepared a three dimensional (3D) hierarchical porous structure with a MoSx coated copper nanowires on copper foam (Cu [email protected]x/Cu foam) and explored the photoelctrocatalytic activity toward hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The optical behavior of the Cu [email protected]x/Cu foam resulted from the photoinduced charge-carriers of Cu NWs/Cu foam due to surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect. Cu [email protected]x/Cu foam-20c displays an enhanced absorption intensity within the visible region and the increased separation of charge-carriers due to cooperative interactions between plasmonic copper and MoSx. The photocatalytic HER activity of Cu [email protected]x/Cu foam-20c is featured with H2 production of 857.4 μmol g−1h−1. The photocurrent ΔJ of Cu [email protected]/Cu foam-20c is 13.7 times that of the MoSx/FTO-20c, 7.0 times that of the Cu [email protected] and 1.5 times that of the Cu NWs/Cu foam. More importantly, Cu [email protected]x/Cu foam-20c remained almost unchanged in microstructure or composition and photoelectrocatalytic performance after over 56 h testing, suggesting its superb stability. This is ascribed to the binder-free electrode and the formation of the Cu1.83Mo3S4 composite at the interface between Cu NWs and MoSx. This highly stable and active photoelectrode will provide a promising perspective for photoelectrocatalytic H2 production.