The urgent need for clean and renewable energy drives the exploration of effective strategies to produce hydrogen. Semiconductor-based photocatalytic hydrogen production technology is one of the ideal processes for direct solar energy conversion and storage that has been widely studied. The development of highly efficient photocatalysts is essential for the cost-effective and large-scale production of hydrogen. CdS-based semiconductor photocatalysts have attracted significant attention due to their unique advantages, including strong visible light absorption capacity, suitable band edge levels and excellent electronic charge transfer. However, unlike TiO₂ with good photostability, the intrinsic drawback of photocorrosion of CdS-based semiconductors significantly challenges their durable application in photocatalysis. This review focuses on recent advances in material design and strategies for improving the anti-photocorrosion of CdS-based photocatalysts for applications in photocatalytic overall water splitting to produce hydrogen. Moreover, brief prospective development and challenges in the synthesis of anti-corrosion CdS-based photocatalysts are also presented.

Herein, we demonstrate a complex-precipitation strategy for high-yield fabrication of single-crystalline Ag₃PO₄ sub-microcubes with sharp corners, edges, and smooth surfaces, which exhibit much higher photocatalytic activities and photoelectric conversion properties than spherical Ag₃PO₄ particles and commercial N-doped TiO₂ under visible light irradiation.

Developing low-cost and highly efficient catalysts toward the efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is highly desirable for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Herein, we demonstrated that N-incorporation could efficiently activate NiFeO_x catalysts for significantly enhancing the oxygen evolution activity and stability of BiVO₄ photoanodes, and the photocurrent density has been achieved up to 6.4 mA cm⁻² at 1.23 V (vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), AM 1.5 G). Systematic studies indicate that the partial substitution of O sites in NiFeO_x catalysts by low electronegative N atoms enriched the electron densities in both Fe and Ni sites. The electron-enriched Ni sites conversely donated electrons to V sites of BiVO₄ for restraining V⁵⁺ dissolution and improving the PEC stability, while the enhanced hole-attracting ability of Fe sites significantly promotes the oxygen-evolution activity. This work provides a promising strategy for optimizing OER catalysts to construct highly efficient and stable PEC water splitting devices.

A novel high active catalyst Ni@MOF-5 showed unexpected higher activity under the low temperature for CO₂ methanation. The characterization results indicated that Ni was in highly dispersed uniform state over MOF-5. This catalyst performed high stability and showed almost no deactivation in long term stability tests up to 100 h.

Selective growth of Ag₃PO₄ submicro-cubes on Ag nanowires to construct necklace-like hetero-photocatalysts has been demonstrated. This novel hetero-structure exhibits much higher activities than both pure Ag₃PO₄ cubes and Ag nanowires for degradation of organic contaminants under visible light irradiation, which may be primarily ascribed to highly efficient charge separation at the contact interfaces as well as rapid electron export through Ag nanowires.

Cu/Cu₂O/Cu/TiO₂ catalyst was fabricated by in-situ photoreduction from Cu₂O/TiO₂, and it showed an excellent photocatalytic performance and high stability for H₂ evolution. The interlayer metallic Cu provided a bridge for electrons fast transfer from TiO₂ to Cu₂O.