LAUSR

Abstract To remedy the instability problem of the non-elemental-metal (NEM) plasmonic photocatalyst WO3−x in aqueous solution, a novel strategy of photoinduced electron injection was applied to construct CdS/WO3−x hetereostructures by growing WO3−x on semiconductor CdS nanowires. Under visible/near-infrared light irradiation, the NEM plasmonic CdS/WO3−x nanowires are highly stable and exhibit a much higher activity (1.60 mmol g−1 h−1) than do plasmonic WO3−x (negligible amount) and semiconductor CdS (0.53 mmol g−1 h−1) in hydrogen generation. Wavelength dependent photocatalytic performance and Single-particle PL study demonstrate that photo-excited electrons on CdS continually inject into conduction band of WO3−x, so that the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of the NEM plasmonic photocatalyst WO3−x is sustained while hot electrons generated by the SPR excitation are consumed for hydrogen generation.