Anion vacancy correlated photocatalytic CO 2 to CO conversion over quantum-confined CdS nanorods under visible light

Surface vacancies in II–VI semiconductors have been confirmed as active sites for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction. Here we take quantum-confined CdS nanorod as a model photocatalyst to correlate anion vacancies with photocatalytic CO 2 reduction performance. In terms of electronic structure change, CdS nanorods with more surface S vacancies give enhanced CO generation rates, which were confirmed by deliberately introducing S vacancies via a post-treatment.