A novel SRP/CdS heterostructure hollow nanospheres for outstanding photocatalytic performance

The construction of non-metals with semiconductors heterostructure has received a lot of interest as a photocatalyst for converting solar energy into hydrogen during the photocatalysis water-splitting process. Herein, we reported for the first time the controlled synthesis of heterostructure SRP/CdS hollow nanospheres via hydrothermal treatment. The results reveal that the surface roughening red phosphorus (SRP) was incorporated between loops of CdS nanospheres, constructing hollow nanosphere structures with suitable diameters. Moreover, the different SRP mass ratios could tune the band gap structures, increase the surface areas, and improve the electron-hole pair separation of the prepared photocatalysts, achieving promising results of the light-harvesting. Interestingly, the optimum heterostructure SRP0.03/CdS hollow nanospheres increases the photocatalytic rate of Rhodamine B (RhB) photodegradation to 1.78 times (88%) compared to pure CdS (78%) with rate constant (k) reaching 1.034 × 10−1 and 0.583 × 10−1 L·mol−1·min−1 for SRP0.03/CdS HNS and CdS NS, respectively. The scavenging experiments reveal that superoxide radicals (•O2–) and holes (h+) are the main active species in RhB photocatalysis. The chemical oxygen demand percent (%COD) and total organic carbon percent (%TOC) was investigated for RhB removal, achieving 77.89% and 65.53%, respectively, showing that RhB mineralization was not complete. Moreover, SRP0.03/CdS HNS achieves superior photoelectrochemical performance including transient photocurrent (17.68 μA/cm2), and current density (39.34 mA/cm2) under light irradiation. Thus, the developed construction of non-metals with semiconductor structures is thought to be a promising heterojunction photocatalyst for addressing hydrogen production issues.