Hydrogen evolution from photocatalytic water splitting by LaMnO3 modified with amorphous CoSx.

The expansion of the optical response range and the high photoelectron holes separation and the transfer efficiency are prerequisites for the excellent hydrogen evolution performance of the catalyst. In this paper, amorphous CoS_x is combined with rare-earth complex LaMnO₃ and under the characterization of SEM, TEM, XRD and XPS, the successful synthesis of the composite catalyst was demonstrated; characterization results by UV–Vis, BET and electrochemical workstations show that the composite material exposes more active sites, and the close contact interface formed between the two effectively improves the separation and transmission of photogenerated carriers, and the ability of the composite material to sense light is also significantly enhanced. After optimizing the hydrogen production conditions of the composite catalyst, the hydrogen production under visible light (≥ 420 nm) for 5 h reached 458.8 μmol, which was about 6.8 and 4.5 times that of pure LaMnO₃ and CoS_x, and the hydrogen evolution stability of the material is very good. Studies have shown that amorphous CoS_x is a good material that can replace precious metals for hydrogen production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]