Abstract

In order to reduce the cost and improve the ability of photocatalytic hydrogen production of ZnCdS catalyst, the SiO2 aerogel/ZnCdS catalyst was prepared by microwave method using SiO2 aerogel as carrier, and their morphology and structure were studied by x-ray diffraction (XRD), electron microscopy, ultraviolet spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and the effect of SiO2 aerogel content on the catalytic performance of ZnCdS was investigated. The experimental results show that the photocatalytic H2 production of ZnCdS catalyst was increased by SiO2 aerogel. When the content of SiO2 aerogel is 5 %, SiO2/ZnCdS exhibits the best photocatalytic hydrogen production ability. The hydrogen production rate reaches 4032.6 μmol·g−1·h−1, which is as 2.4 times as that of pure ZnCdS. The enhancement reason is that the SiO2 aerogel reduce the recombination rate of photo-generated electron-hole pairs.