Novel interfacial lateral electron migration pathway formed by constructing metallized CoP2/CdS interface for excellent photocatalytic hydrogen production

Promoting photo-induced electron transfer is one of the most efficient approaches for improving photocatalytic hydrogen production performance. Herein, we construct a novel interfacial lateral electron migration path by introducing CoP2 into CdS photocatalytic system as cocatalyst for the first time. This peculiar migration path can be attributed to two aspects: 1) the built-in electric field between CoP2 and CdS could drive carrier separation effectively; 2) the metallized interface serves as a special electron trap to accumulate electrons and promote them transfer along it instead of diffusion into cocatalyst. The energy-efficient interface shortens the electron migration distance and make more hot electrons participate in the reaction at the active sites with lower acti-vation energy. As expected, the optimal hydrogen production rate of CoP2/CdS reaches up to 1071 mmol h-1 g- 1 , which is one of the most robust photocatalytic hydrogen production systems.

Automated summary

By introducing CoP2 as a cocatalyst, a novel interfacial lateral electron migration path is constructed, which effectively promotes the improvement of photocatalytic hydrogen production performance.