High-performance hydrogen evolution of NiB/ZnCdS under visible light irradiation

Abstract With the continuous growth of global energy demand, the artificial photosynthetic system of photocatalytic decomposition of hydrogen production has been widely concerned, CdZnS, a photocatalyst based on solid solution, has shown good performance. In order to avoid the rapid recombination of photogenerated electron and hole, metal boride is added as a catalyst to enhance its photocatalytic hydrogen production performance. We prepared CdZnS photocatalyst by hydrothermal method, and synthesized different proportions of NiB/CdZnS catalyst by programmed heating method and calcined it at 773K. Characterized by XRD, XPS, uv–vis diffuse reflection and other methods, CZS solid solution and NiB/CdZnS were synthesized, and the absorption edge of NiB/CZS was redshifted relative to the pure CdZnS. The addition of NiB can effectively inhibit the recombination of electrons and holes to improve the separation efficiency of photogenerated charge, and its content has an impact on photocatalytic activity. We found that under visible light irradiation, when the content is 15 wt%, the hydrogen production was the highest. The optimal quantum efficiency was 13.3%, and the hydrogen production reacheed 8137 μmol/g/h, which is 17 times that of pure CdZnS. The addition of NiB greatly improved the photocatalytic performance of CdZnS.