The protonated carbon nitride (pCN), which was protonated by hydrochloric acid and molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) composites, was loaded on foam nickel as the photoanode driving the photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) system and used for hydrogen evolution reaction in this study. The results show that the hydrogen evolution performance of the photoelectrode is optimal when the mass ratio of MoS₂ to pCN is 1:1. The initial overpotential for hydrogen evolution is 0.167 V, and a small amount of loading can increase chemical activity by 23 times.

Abstract

Currently, energy crisis and environmental crisis are the primary threats facing humanity, and the introduction of solar energy for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution is one of the effective ways to solve these two problems. In this study, the protonated carbon nitride (pCN) which was protonated by hydrochloric acid and molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) composites were loaded on foam nickel as the photoanode driving the photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) system and used for hydrogen evolution reaction. The research results show that the hydrogen evolution performance of the photoelectrode is optimal when the mass ratio of MoS₂ to pCN is 1:1. Electrochemical performance studies have shown that the initial overpotential for hydrogen evolution is 0.167 V, and a small amount of loading can increase chemical activity by 23 times. The strong stability was verified through CP testing for 10 hand CV cycling for 3000 cycles. At the same time, it was found that protonation treatment with hydrochloric acid not only helps to strip bulk nitride carbon and load composite materials, but also reduces the bandgap and promotes the improvement of light absorption capacity.