Abstract
Transition metal chalcogenides have intensively focused on photocatalytic hydrogen production for a decade due to their stronger edge and the quantum confinement effect. This work mainly focuses on synthesis and hydrogen production efficiencies of cobalt disulfide (CoS(2))-embedded TiO(2) nanocomposites. Materials are synthesized by using a hydrothermal approach and the hydrogen production efficiencies of pristine CoS(2), TiO(2) nanoparticles and CoS(2)/TiO(2) nanocomposites are compared under UV irradiation. A higher amount of hydrogen production (2.55 mmol g(-1)) is obtained with 10 wt.% CoS(2)/TiO(2) nanocomposite than pristineTiO(2) nanoparticles, whereas no hydrogen production was observed with pristine CoS(2) nanoparticles. This result unveils that the metal dichalcogenide-CoS(2) acts as an effective co-catalyst and nanocrystalline TiO(2) serves as an active site by effectively separating the photogenerated electron-hole pair. This study lays down a new approach for developing transition metal dichalcogenide materials with significant bandgaps that can effectively harness solar energy for hydrogen production.