Highly dispersed Pt clusters encapsulated in MIL-125-NH2 via in situ auto-reduction method for photocatalytic H2 production under visible light

• Published in: Nano research Vol. 14; no. 11; pp. 4250 - 4257
• Main Authors: Huang, Xiubing, Li, Xiangjun, Luan, Qingjie, Zhang, Kaiyue, Wu, Zhenyu, Li, Baozhen, Xi, Zuoshuai, Dong, Wenjun, Wang, Ge
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Tsinghua University Press 01.11.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Amino groups; Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Catalysts; Chemistry and Materials Science; Clusters; Condensed Matter Physics; Dispersion; Encapsulation; Hydrogen production; Materials Science; Metal-organic frameworks; Nanoalloys; Nanoparticles; Nanotechnology; Photocatalysis; Platinum; Research Article; Sustainable development; photocatalytic H; Pt clusters; auto-reduction method; visible light; MIL-125-NH; production
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-021-3597-3

Efficient hydrogen production via photocatalysis with high utilization efficiency of Pt cocatalyst is of great importance for sustainable development. In this work, we report an in situ auto-reduction strategy to encapsulate highly dispersed Pt clusters inside the cages of MIL-125-NH 2 . The amino groups in MIL-125-NH 2 first react with formaldehyde to form reducing groups (i.e.,–NH-CH 2 OH), which can in situ auto-reduce the confined Pt 2+ ions to ultrasmall Pt clusters within the cavities. With optimized Pt content, photocatalytic H 2 production over the obtained Pt(1.5)/MIL-125-NH-CH 2 OH catalyst with 1.43 wt.% Pt loading achieved as high as 4,496.4 µmol·g −1 ·h −1 under visible light ( λ > 420 nm) due to the facilitated transfer and separation of the photo-induced charger carriers arising from the synergetic effects between highly dispersed Pt clusters and MIL-125-NH-CH 2 OH framework. This in situ auto-reduction strategy may be extended to encapsulate various kinds of metal or alloy clusters/nanoparticles within amino-functioned metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with superior properties and excellent performance.