Integrating noble-metal-free metallic vanadium carbide cocatalyst with CdS for efficient visible-light-driven photocatalytic H2 evolution

Metallic vanadium carbide (VC) as a noble-metal-free cocatalyst demonstrates high activity and stability in catalyzing photocatalytic H2 evolution when integrated with CdS nanoparticles under visible light irradiation, achieving up to 12 times higher activity than pristine CdS and an apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of 8.7% at 420 nm.