Cobalt phosphide microspheres integrated with cadmium sulfide nanowires as an efficient photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract In this work, we construct a well-designed integrated photocatalyst with massive specific surface area of active sites for high-efficiency photocatalytic splitting water. Taking CdS/Co 2 P as a case, we first put forward a typical one-step hydrothermal strategy to synthesize cobalt phosphide (Co 2 P) microspheres within 3 h and obtain one-dimensional cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanowires deposition on Co 2 P microspheres at room temperature. Under optimal conditions, 50 mg photocatalyst nanocomposite can show the highest rate for H 2 evolution was 723 μmol h −1 which is about 360 times greater than that of pure Co 2 P microspheres under visible light, and the highest quantum efficiency (QE) of 23.6% is achieved at 470 nm. The system shows extraordinarily high activity and great stability. Meanwhile, the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution mechanism of photocatalyst nanocomposites is also proposed and discussed. To our knowledge, it has been rarely reported that a green and rapid one-step hydrothermal synthesis route for pure phase metal phosphide and applying photocatalyst based on an earth-abundant ideal metal phosphide in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution to date.