Rare‐earth metal–organic frameworks (RE‐MOFs) featuring tunable coordination environments and unique 4f electronic configurations hold great potential for photocatalytic applications. Nevertheless, their efficiency is often limited by rapid charge recombination. Herein, a series of RE‐MOFs were synthesized via solvothermal reactions using 2′‐amino‐1,1′:4′,1″‐terphenyl−3,3″,5,5″‐tetracarboxylic acid (NH 2 ‐H 4 TPTC) as the organic linker and erbium/holmium (Er 3+ /Ho 3+ ) as metal nodes and further integrated with CdS nanoparticles via a precipitation strategy to construct RE‐MOF/CdS heterostructures. Comprehensive characterization verified the successful formation and stability of the composites. Under visible‐light irradiation from a 300 W xenon lamp over 3 h, both Er‐NH 2 ‐TPTC/CdS and Ho‐NH 2 ‐TPTC/CdS exhibited significantly enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution compared with pristine CdS. The optimized Ho‐NH 2 ‐TPTC/CdS (20 wt%) composite achieved a hydrogen evolution rate of 11 408 μmol·g −1 , representing an 8.6‐fold enhancement over pristine CdS. Mechanistic analyses revealed that the intimate RE–MOF/CdS interface facilitates efficient charge separation and transfer, thereby suppressing electron–hole recombination. This study demonstrates a rational strategy for constructing high‐performance RE‐MOF‐semiconductor heterostructures and provides new insight into the design of rare‐earth‐based photocatalysts for solar hydrogen production.
Cheng et al. (2026) studied this question.