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- Language
- English
- Conflict of Interest
- In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.
- Publication history
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Received August 7, 2024
Accepted October 17, 2024
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This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Photocatalyst Design Principles for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production and Benzyl Alcohol Oxidation with CdS Nanosheets
Abstract
To produce hydrogen using photocatalysts while maintaining environmentally friendly characteristics, research has focused
on using benzyl alcohol (BzOH) as a hole scavenger to convert it into the valuable compound benzaldehyde (BA). However,
due to the relatively slow oxidation rate of BzOH compared to conventional hole scavengers, tailored photocatalyst designs
are necessary. In this study, we prepared CdS nanosheets (NSs) and introduced Na 2 SO 4 –Na 2 SO 3 and BzOH as hole scavengers
to adjust the oxidation half-reaction rate (OHR) during the photocatalytic reaction. Various co-catalysts were introduced
to examine how changes in the reduction half-reaction (RHR) and OHR rates infl uence hydrogen production. The results
reveal that the selection of co-catalyst and hole scavenger signifi cantly infl uences the rate-determining step (RDS) in the
photocatalytic reaction. For bare CdS NSs, the slow RHR results in the RDS being the RHR, leading to similar hydrogen
production rate regardless of the scavenger type. However, with Pt as a co-catalyst, the RDS shifts to the OHR due to the
accelerated RHR, inducing hydrogen production rate highly sensitive to the type of scavenger. Consequently, hydrogen production
is signifi cantly reduced when using BzOH, which has a slower oxidation rate. These fi ndings suggest that achieving
high hydrogen yields is fundamentally challenging with BzOH due to its slow oxidation rate, even with the introduction of
excellent co-catalysts. Therefore, it is imperative to develop photocatalyst materials with lower valence band level for high
oxidation power.