Fabrication and efficient photocatalytic activity of porous CdS-pillared tetratitanate nanohybrid

• Heterostructured CdS–H2Ti4O9 nanohybrid exhibits a wide spectral response.
• The nanohybrid gave a H2 evolution rate of 895 μmol h–1 g–1 in water splitting.
• The electronic coupling was evidenced by XPS and photocurrent results.

Heterostructured CdS-pillared tetratitanate nanohybrid was fabricated by electrostatically driven self-assembly of the exfoliated tetratitanate nanosheets and CdS nanosol particles. It was revealed that the present nanohybrid is porous with a specific surface area of 65 m2 g−1 and that the tetratitanate nanosheets were restacked in a well-ordered arrangement with a gallery height of 2.3 nm. The formation of an electronic coupling between the titanate nanosheets and the encapsulated CdS pillars was supported by XPS and photocurrent measurements. The nanohybrid exhibits a highly photocatalytic activity of 895 μmol h−1 g−1 in H2 evolution from water splitting under 300 W Xe lamp irradiation, which is about 11 and 7 times higher than its parents H2Ti4O9·H2O and CdS, respectively. Loading 3 wt% Pt resulted in that its activity was further improved to 1897 μmol h−1 g−1. It was showed that the as-prepared nanohybrid has an excellent stability and recurrence performance in hydrogen generation.

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