Effect of Phosphorus-Doped Phase-Modulated WS2 Nanosheets on CdS Nanorods for Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production

The utilization of earth-abundant natural resources, such as solar energy, for photocatalytic hydrogen production offers a potential way to mitigate the impacts of fossil fuels. Here, we suggest the heterostructure formation of CdS nanorods with phosphorus-doped (P-doped) dual-phase WS2 nanosheets (1T-2H), with the goal of exploring an extremely efficient photocatalyst for solar water splitting. 1T-2H-transformed WS2-P nanostructures exhibit a semimetallic nature with high electronic conductivity and are enriched with both basal and edge-active sites to promote charge carrier kinetics. This may drive the achievement of a high rate of hydrogen evolution by CdS/WS2-P nanostructures (262.12 mmol·g–1·h–1) emphasizing the synergistic interaction of CdS with dual-phase (1T-2H) WS2-P nanostructures. Furthermore, the stability analysis demonstrates that CdS/WS2-P nanostructures are extremely stable for more than 60 h under continuous solar irradiation, highlighting their large-scale applications. Overall, this work offers an example of how to overcome the efficiency barrier of a photocatalyst for solar hydrogen production via heterojunction creation of CdS with dual-phase WS2 nanosheets.