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Pt-surface oxygen vacancies coupling accelerated photo-charge extraction and activated hydrogen evolution

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Abstract

Semiconductors-based heterogeneous photocatalytic water splitting has been extensively studied, but it still remains challenging to accelerate the separation of electron—hole pairs and facilitate the reaction kinetics. Here we report a general strategy to fabricate highly efficient Pt/TiO2 photocatalyst by coupling the Pt co-catalysts and surface oxygen vacancies (VO) of TiO2. TiO2 was pre-modified with alkali or alkaline earth metals ion solutions, which produce a large number of surface hydroxyl on TiO2. Subsequently, the photodeposited Pt sub-nanoparticles substitute surface hydroxyl and induce surface VO on TiO2. The coupling of Pt and surface VO on TiO2 can accelerate the extraction of photo-charges through the interaction of Pt—VO—Ti bonds and reduce the hydrogen evolution barrier, thereby promoting the photocatalytic activity. The synthesized Pt-VO-TiO2 sample exhibits a photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity as high as 1.5 L·g−1·h−1, which is 2.2 times that of traditional Pt/TiO2. Our findings in-depth understand the synergistic effect of co-catalysts and defects on photocatalysis and open up new possibilities for achieving robust photocatalytic water splitting.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51802171, 52072197, and 21905154), Outstanding Youth Foundation of Shandong Province, China (No. ZR2019JQ14), Youth Innovation and Technology Foundation of Shandong Higher Education Institutions, China (No. 2019KJC004), Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Project (No. 2019JZZY020405), and Taishan Scholar Program, Major Basic Research Program of Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province under Grant (No. ZR2020ZD09).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Eco-chemical Engineering, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266042, China

    Fangxu Dai, Mingming Zhang, Mingzhong Mi, Jun Xing & Lei Wang

  2. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266042, China

    Zhenjiang Li

  3. College of Environment and Safety Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Shandong Engineering Research Center for Marine Environment Corrosion and Safety Protection, Qingdao, 266042, China

    Lei Wang

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  1. Fangxu Dai
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  5. Jun Xing
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  6. Lei Wang
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Correspondence to Jun Xing or Lei Wang.

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Dai, F., Zhang, M., Mi, M. et al. Pt-surface oxygen vacancies coupling accelerated photo-charge extraction and activated hydrogen evolution. Nano Res. 16, 4736–4741 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5181-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5181-x

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