Construction of S‐scheme MnO 2 @CdS heterojunction with core–shell structure as H 2 ‐production photocatalyst

Artificial photosynthesis is deemed as an efficient protocol for transforming abundant solar energy into valuable fuel. In this paper, the well‐defined one‐dimensional (1D) core–shell MnO 2 @CdS hybrids were constructed by employing MnO 2 nanotubes and CdS nanoparticles as nano‐building blocks via a chemical co‐precipitation route. The rationally designed core–shell structure provided an intimate heterojunction interface between the CdS shell and MnO 2 core. All the MnO 2 @CdS core–shell nanocomposites possess higher H 2 evolution rate through visible light irradiation contrary to pristine CdS, and the optimal MnO 2 @CdS hybrid exhibits the utmost H 2 evolution rate of 3.94 mmol·g −1 ·h −1 , which is 2.8‐fold higher compared with that of CdS. Appertaining to XPS and Mott‐Schottky (M‐S) analysis, such enhanced photocatalytic H 2 generation of MnO 2 @CdS heterojunction was ascribed to an S‐scheme mechanism, which suppressed the charge recombination along with a fast detachment of electron–hole pairs (e − –h + ) and significantly improved the severance of carriers, thus improved H 2 evolution performance. These findings envision a new insight into the development of S‐scheme heterostructure for photocatalytic H 2 generation.