Achieve high-efficiency photocatalytic hydrogen production of MCNTs-CdS/Pt/ZnFe2O4 heterojunction owing to building charge transport bridge

MCNTs-CdS has been identified as a promising material for photocatalytic hydrogen production due to its strong visible-light responsiveness and suitable energy band structure. However, the rapid complexation of its photogenerated electrons and holes makes its photocatalytic hydrogen production unsatisfactory. To address the above problem, MCNTs-CdS/Pt/ZnFe 2 O 4 composites were designed in this paper, and Pt was used as an electronic bridge to realize the fast transfer of electrons between the two semiconductors. The results show that the carrier transport resistance of MCNTs-CdS/Pt/ZnFe 2 O 4 system is greatly reduced, and the electron-hole separation rate is significantly better than that of MCNTs-CdS. In addition, the results of the photolysis of water hydrogen production demonstrated that when the deposition amount of Pt was 8 % and the mass ratio of MCNTs-CdS to ZnFe 2 O 4 was 1:0.1, the hydrogen production rate reached its maximum (1100.82 μmol/g/h), which was 35.51 times higher than that of MCNTs-CdS. The metal Pt functions as an electronic bridge to realize rapid electron transfer and MCNTs-CdS/Pt/ZnFe 2 O 4 form a Z-scheme carrier transport mechanism.