Efficient Visible Light Hydrogen Evolution Catalyst Composed of Non-noble Metal Nitride(Ni3N) Cocatalyst and Zn0.5Cd0.5S Solid Solution

In recent years, many effective photocatalysts have been developed to solve the problem of environmental pollution and clean energy shortage. In this paper, non-noble metal cocatalyst Ni3N nanoparticles supported Zn0.5Cd0.5S(ZCS) nanorods(Ni3N/ZCS) composites were successfully synthesized by ultrasonic method. The hydrogen production efficiencies of the photocatalysts were tested under visible light, which was found that when the loading of Ni3N was 2% of the mass of ZCS, and the Ni3N/ZCS composite had the best hydrogen evolution performance, which could reach 70.3 mmol & BULL;h(-1)& BULL;g(-1). In addition, the quantum efficiency under 420 nm monochromatic light irradiation was 27.2%. Through different characterization analyses, such as X-ray diffraction(XRD), scanning electron microscopy(SEM), and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectra(DRS), a possible photocatalytic mechanism was proposed, providing some reference value for non-precious metals as cocatalysts.