Abstract As a promising green chemical technology, solar-energy-driven photocatalysis has attracted great attentions. Herein, tungsten carbide (WC) hollow spheres with a surface area of 396.3 m2 g−1 were successfully fabricated, and used to support CdS nanoparticles (∼5 nm) to form a noble-metal-free CdS/WC photocatalyst. CdS/WC exhibits high abilities in absorbing visible light which is the main part of the sunlight (44%) and in separating the photogenerated electron-hole pairs. The H2 evolution rate in the visible-light-driven photocatalytic H2O splitting on CdS/WC (1331.7 μmol h−1) is much higher than those on the photocatalysts formed by combining the CdS nanoparticles with WC nanoparticles (739.6 μmol h−1) and with Pt nanoparticles (556.3 μmol h−1). The enhanced electron-hole separation and subsequent transfer of the charge carriers on CdS/WC is responsible for the higher H2 evolution rate on CdS/WC. These results are helpful for preparing noble-metal-free photocatalysts for more efficient photocatalysis.

中文翻译：

---

碳化钨空心球可灵活用于电荷分离和转移，用于增强可见光驱动的光催化

摘要 太阳能驱动的光催化作为一种​​很有前景的绿色化学技术受到了广泛关注。在此，成功制备了表面积为 396.3 m2 g-1 的碳化钨 (WC) 空心球，并用于负载 CdS 纳米粒子 (~5 nm) 以形成不含贵金属的 CdS/WC 光催化剂。CdS/WC 在吸收可见光（太阳光的主要部分）（44%）和分离光生电子-空穴对方面表现出很高的能力。可见光驱动的光催化 H2O 在 CdS/WC (1331.7 μmol h-1) 上分解的 H2 析出速率远高于通过将 CdS 纳米粒子与 WC 纳米粒子结合形成的光催化剂 (739.6 μmol h-1) 和与 Pt 纳米粒子 (556.3 μmol h-1)。CdS/WC 上电荷载流子的增强的电子-空穴分离和随后的转移是 CdS/WC 上更高的 H2 析出率的原因。这些结果有助于制备不含贵金属的光催化剂以实现更有效的光催化。