TY - JOUR
T1 - Biomass as a Template Leads to CdS@Carbon Aerogels for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution and Stable Photoelectrochemical Cells
AU - Quan, Fengyu
AU - Zhang, Junlu
AU - Li, Daohao
AU - Zhu, Yukun
AU - Wang, Yu
AU - Bu, Yuyu
AU - Qin, Yimin
AU - Xia, Yanzhi
AU - Komarneni, Sridhar
AU - Yang, Dongjiang
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFB0309005), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51473081 and 51672143), Taishan Scholars Program, Outstanding Youth of Natural Science in Shandong Province (JQ201713), and ARC Discovery Project (No. 170103317).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2018/11/5
Y1 - 2018/11/5
N2 - A facile strategy to fabricate cadmium sulfide@carbon aerogels (CdS@CAs) has been demonstrated based on the "double-helix" structure of Cd-carrageenan hydrogel. The carrageenan and the extract of seaweed biomass were crucial components for the synthesis of CdS@CAs, since they provide a sustainable template and also serve as the carbon and sulfur sources. The obtained CdS@CAs not only exhibited enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction performance but also showed high photoelectrochemical activity and super photostability. In particular, the sample with the optimum carbon content achieved the highest HER rate of 113.5 μmol h-1 and 100 μA cm-2 of photocurrent under visible light. Moreover, it retained excellent stability after 4000 s of operation under illumination. The improved performance of CdS@CAs was ascribed to the unique three-dimentional (3D) porous structure of CAs as the support. To be specific, the interconnected macropores and large mesopores of CAs were found to be beneficial for the fast mass transfer of contaminants and easy accessibility to CdS nanoparticles. In addition, the high electrical conductivity of CAs can efficiently separate and transfer the photogenerated charges and, thus, enhance the photocatalytic performance and stability. This strategy opens up new opportunities in the use of seaweed biomass to fabricate high-performance photocatalysts.
AB - A facile strategy to fabricate cadmium sulfide@carbon aerogels (CdS@CAs) has been demonstrated based on the "double-helix" structure of Cd-carrageenan hydrogel. The carrageenan and the extract of seaweed biomass were crucial components for the synthesis of CdS@CAs, since they provide a sustainable template and also serve as the carbon and sulfur sources. The obtained CdS@CAs not only exhibited enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction performance but also showed high photoelectrochemical activity and super photostability. In particular, the sample with the optimum carbon content achieved the highest HER rate of 113.5 μmol h-1 and 100 μA cm-2 of photocurrent under visible light. Moreover, it retained excellent stability after 4000 s of operation under illumination. The improved performance of CdS@CAs was ascribed to the unique three-dimentional (3D) porous structure of CAs as the support. To be specific, the interconnected macropores and large mesopores of CAs were found to be beneficial for the fast mass transfer of contaminants and easy accessibility to CdS nanoparticles. In addition, the high electrical conductivity of CAs can efficiently separate and transfer the photogenerated charges and, thus, enhance the photocatalytic performance and stability. This strategy opens up new opportunities in the use of seaweed biomass to fabricate high-performance photocatalysts.
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U2 - 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b03415
DO - 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b03415
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85054998504
SN - 2168-0485
VL - 6
SP - 14911
EP - 14918
JO - ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
JF - ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
IS - 11
ER -
