The development of photoelectrodes capable of light-driven hydrogen evolution from water with non-noble metals is an important approach for the storage of solar energy in the form of a chemical energy carrier. In this study, we report Co nanoparticles@N-doped carbon coated on carbon nanotube@defective-silica (CNTs@Co@NC/D-SiO2), which are composed of Co nanoparticles@N-doped carbon as electrocatalyst, defective-silica as photocatalyst and carbon nanotube as conductive substrates. The obtained non-noble photocathode possesses the high performance for efficient photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction. When evaluated for hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalysis, CNTs@Co@NC/D-SiO2 exhibits a small onset overpotential of 104 mV (J =1 mA cm(-2)), a Tafel slope of 69.1 mV dec(-1) and outstanding longterm cycling stability. The P type semiconductor characteristics of CNTs@Co@NC/D-SiO2 due to defective-silica with carrier concentration of 3.53 x 10(19) cm(-3) is measured, which produces a significant positive shift of overpotential of 40 mV (J= 10 mA cm(-2)) under 100 mW cm(-2) simulated sunlight irradiation. These findings provide a straightforward and effective route to produce cheap and efficient photo-electro-catalyst for water splitting. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.