A Dual-Channel Charge Transfer Heterostructure toward Boosting Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

The design and fabrication of dual-channel charge transmission mode are crucial to developing highly effective photocatalysts. However, constructing double charge transfer paths by loading dual cocatalysts in a nanocomposite is still a great challenge. Here, hollow Co9S8 nanocages are utilized to design a hierarchical Co9S8/CdIn2S4/Pt heterostructure with dual-channel for charge transfer, in which Co9S8 nanocages and Pt particles act as cocatalysts. Moreover, Co9S8 and CdIn2S4 form an atomic interfacial contact by intermediate sulfur atoms. Due to double-channel charge transfer and atomic interfacial bonding, the Co9S8/CdIn2S4/Pt nanocages accelerate the photo-induced carriers transfer and suppress the combination of electron-hole pairs. As a result, the Co9S8/CdIn2S4/Pt nanocages exhibit increased photocurrent density of 62.8 mu A cm(-2), far exceeding that of pristine Co9S8 (6.87 mu A cm(-2)). The optimized Co9S8/CdIn2S4/Pt nanocages display excellent photocatalytic H-2 in production rate of 13 426 mu mol g(-1) h(-1) and high cyclic stability for water splitting.