A Z-scheme BiMoO/CdSe-diethylenetriamine heterojunction for enhancing photocatalytic hydrogen production activity under visible light.

Recently, cadmium selenide (CdSe) has been deeply studied because of its excellent photocatalytic hydrogen (H2) production performance. However, pure CdSe has poor stability and severe photocorrosion, which seriously affect its application prospect. In this work, we successfully deposit Bi2MoO6 on an inorganic-organic CdSe-diethylenetriamine (DETA) hybrid to design Bi2MoO6/CdSe-DETA composites by an in situ solvothermal method. The morphology, crystal structure, electrochemical properties, H2 evolution performance and the photostability of Bi2MoO6/CdSe-DETA composites are explored using various techniques. The results show that the as-prepared Bi2MoO6/CdSe-DETA composites exhibit excellent photocatalytic performance and photostability under visible light irradiation. Among them, the Bi2MoO6/CdSe-DETA hybrid system exhibits excellent photocatalytic H2 production performance (5.92 mmol g-1 h-1), which is approximately 3.6 and 1.8 times higher than that of pure CdSe and CdSe-DETA, respectively. After 4 cycles, the photocatalyst still maintains high H2 production. This study develops a new type of photocatalyst that can respond to visible light. This provides an effective way to solve the energy problem by using solar energy.