Significant Visible Photoactivity and Antiphotocorrosion Performance of CdS Photocatalysts after Monolayer Polyaniline Hybridization

The dramatic enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity and excellent antiphotocorrosion performance of CdS photocatalysts were obtained after hybridized by monolayer polyaniline. The as-prepared PANI-CdS hybrid photocatalysts reveal the outstanding photocatalytic activity and photoelectrical conversion efficiency which can improve about 2.5 and 1.8 times that of the pure CdS, respectively. Significantly, the issue of photocorrosion, a congenital disadvantage of CdS photocatalysts, has been solved completely after hybridization. The mechanisms on enhancement of photocatalytic activity and antiphotocorrosion performance have been emphasized. Under visible light irradiation, photogenerated electrons in LUMO of PANI injected into the conduction band of CdS, photogenerated holes in the valence band of CdS transferred to the photocatalysts surface through HOMO of PANI. The rapid transferring of hole and high separation efficiency of electron−hole pairs lead to the dramatically enhanced photoactivity and completely inhibited photocorrosion.