Three types of high-performance photocatalytic reactors were developed for gas-phase photocatalytic hydrogen (H-2) production from hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and effective photocatalytic decomposition of gaseous H2S at a very low concentration is investigated. In this paper, three lab-scale photocatalytic reactors viz., packed bed photocatalytic reactor, catalyst coated fixed bed photocatalytic reactor and catalyst dispersed photocatalytic reactors were developed to study the performance of reactors on hydrogen production. The novel photocatalyst (CdS + ZnS)/Fe2O3 and the optimized catalyst dosage, H2S gas flow rate, pollutant concentration, light irradiations were used. The experimental result indicates that packed bed photocatalytic reactor can effectively splits the H2S into hydrogen (i.e. 98%) and rapidly decompose H2S toward zero concentration than the other two reactors. Hence the bench-scale photocatalytic reactor was fabricated in packed bed reactor and the maximum hydrogen conversion achieved from hydrogen sulphide was found to be 98%. (C) 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.