Highly Dispersed Ru and Co Active Sites on the Surface of N‐Doped ZnCdS for Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

ZnCdS (ZCS) has presented great potential for photocatalytic applications exploiting its surface engineering via elemental doping to modulate its catalytic properties, which is a feasible strategy to improve the relevant photocatalytic H 2 evolution activity. Herein, Ru‐ and Co‐atom‐based catalytic active site is anchored on nitrogen‐doped ZnCdS (N‐ZCS) that has been prepared by partially removing S from ZnCdS surface, and then the sulfur vacancies are filled with nitrogen. The incorporation of nitrogen modifies the electronic structure and enhances the electronegativity of N‐ZCS. It acts as efficient electron‐trapping sites, thereby significantly promote the separation/migration of photogenerated charge carriers while modulating the electronic band structure and surface adsorption properties. The Ru and Co anchored at catalyst surface serve as active sites for water reduction. The optimized N‐ZCS/RuCo exhibits hydrogen evolution activity of 15.83 mmol g −1 h −1 , much higher compared to that shown by ZnCdS (0.321 mmol g −1 h −1 ) per se and N‐ZCS (0.768 mmol g −1 h −1 ) per se. Mechanistic studies and characterization results reveal that the incorporation of Ru and Co with nitrogen at the N–ZCS facilitates directional transfer of charge carriers through customized band structure and refined surface affinity. This work presents facile pathway to tailor the material properties for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.