Carbon hollow spheres as cocatalyst of Cu-doped TiO2 nanoparticles for improved photocatalytic H2 generation

• Published in: Rare metals Vol. 41; no. 6; pp. 2063 - 2073
• Main Authors: Sun, Li-Juan, Su, Hai-Wei, Xu, Di-Fa, Wang, Le-Le, Tang, Hua, Liu, Qin-Qin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Nonferrous Metals Society of China 2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomaterials; Carbon; Chemistry and Materials Science; Copper; Doping; Electron traps; Energy; Heterojunctions; Hydrogen production; Materials Engineering; Materials Science; Metallic Materials; Molten salts; Nanoparticles; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Original Article; Photocatalysis; Physical Chemistry; Spheres; Synergistic effect; Titanium dioxide; Water splitting; generation; Carbon hollow sphere; Cu-doped TiO; Photocatalytic H
• ISSN: 1001-0521; 1867-7185
• DOI: 10.1007/s12598-021-01936-5

The reasonable employment of cocatalyst in photocatalysis can effectively promote the photocatalytic H 2 production activity. In this study, carbon hollow spheres (C), as a good conductive nonmetallic material, have been utilized as a novel cocatalyst and a matrix for loading the Cu-doped-TiO 2 nanoparticles by a successive hydrothermal method and metal molten salt method. The Cu-doped-TiO 2 nanoparticles were tightly anchored on the surface of carbon hollow sphere to form a zero-dimensional/three dimensional (0D/3D) Cu-doped-TiO 2 /C heterojunction. The optimal Cu-doped-TiO 2 /C heterojunction demonstrated greatly enhanced photocatalytic H 2 generation activity (14.4 mmol·g −1 ·h −1 ) compared with TiO 2 (0.33 mmol·g −1 ·h −1 ) and TiO 2 /C (0.7 mmol·g −1 ·h −1 ). The performance improvement was mainly due to the synergistic effect of carbon hollow sphere cocatalyst and Cu-doping, the Cu-doping in TiO 2 nanoparticles can minimize charge recombination and enhance the available photoexcited electrons, while the 3D carbon hollow spheres can act as electron traps to accelerate the charge separation and offer abundant active sites for solar water splitting reaction. Graphical abstract