High index lattice plane of CdS to enhance photocatalytic hydrogen production

Semiconductor photolysis of aquatic hydrogen has become a research hotspot in recent years. Cadmium sulfide (CdS) photocatalyst has been drawn widespread interest due to good visible light absorption, proper energy band potential, and excellent electron-hole pair production rate and mobility. In this work, three morphologies of CdS were synthesized successfully using different cadmium salts and sulfur sources by solvothermal methods. Compared with CdS nanospheres and nanorods, CdS nanosheets photocatalyst could suppressed the photoogenic electron holes better, resulting its high photocatalytic hydrogen generation activity. CdS nanosheets with good photostability showed the fastest photocatalytic hydrogen production rate (12.37 mmol h −1  g −1 ) with the support of simulated solar-light irradiation. These results indicated that the excellent photocatalytic performance of CdS nanosheets may be related to its exposed high index (002) lattice plane, which was main photocatalytic active lattice plane. This work optimized the catalytic properties of materials by regulating the morphology and the exposure of different lattice planes, which were of great significance for solar energy capture and conversion. Graphical Abstract