Coupling cobalt sulfide nanosheets with cadmium sulfide nanoparticles for highly efficient visible-light-driven photocatalysis

Developing noble-metal-free photocatalysts highly flexible for separating the photogenerated electron-hole pairs is crucial for the solar-energy-driven photocatalysis, but still remains an open question. Herein, we fabricated two dimensional Co3S4 nanosheets with a thickness of about 10 nm, and applied the nanosheets to support CdS nanoparticles (∼5 nm) to form a noble-metal-free CdS/Co3S4 photocatalyst with a higher ability in charge separation. In the visible-light-driven photocatalytic H2O splitting, an enhanced H2 evolution (1083.9 μmol h−1) was achieved on CdS/Co3S4, as compared with those on the CdS-nanoparticle-loaded Co3S4 nanoparticles (775.5 μmol h−1) and noble-metal-based CdS/Pt photocatalyst (566.3 μmol h−1). The enhanced photocatalytic performance is the result of the multiple roles of the Co3S4 nanosheets in the photocatalytic reaction, including promoting electron-hole separation, providing catalytically active sites and suppressing the aggregation of the CdS nanoparticles responsible for light absorption.