Hierarchical Cadmium Sulfide Nanosheet Assembled Flowers Decorated with Copper Sulfide for Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Under Visible Light

Hierarchical CdS nanosheet assembled flowers modified with CuS were synthesized by a simple ion exchange method. The prepared CuS/CdS composites exhibited high visible light photocatalytic hydrogen production activity, and the optimal photocatalytic hydrogen activity of CuS/CdS with 5 wt% loading was 2978 μmol g– 1 h– 1, which exceeded the pure CdS by more than 6 times. The hierarchical organization of nanosheet and uniform distribution as well as close contact between the components in the multi-component photocatalyst improved the light absorption and charge carrier transfer ability, ultimately enhanced the photocatalytic hydrogen production activity. This work shows a great potential of hierarchical CuS/CdS nanosheet assembled flowers for photocatalytic hydrogen production, and also demonstrates that the ion exchange strategy can be extended to the preparation of other CuS and sulfides with hierarchical nanostructures.