TiO 2 -Au composite nanofibers for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

• Published in: RSC advances Vol. 9; no. 50; pp. 29097 - 29104
• Main Authors: Yang, Xiaojiao, Wu, Xuelian, Li, Jun, Liu, Ying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 17.09.2019
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/C9RA05113A

TiO -based materials for photocatalytic hydrogen (H ) evolution have attracted much interest as a renewable approach for clean energy applications. TiO -Au composite nanofibers (NFs) with an average fiber diameter of ∼160 nm have been fabricated by electrospinning combined with calcination treatment. reduced gold nanoparticles (NPs) with uniform size (∼10 nm) are found to disperse homogenously in the TiO NF matrix. The TiO -Au composite NFs catalyst can significantly enhance the photocatalytic H generation with an extremely high rate of 12 440 μmol g h , corresponding to an adequate apparent quantum yield of 5.11% at 400 nm, which is 25 times and 10 times those of P25 (584 μmol g h ) and pure TiO NFs (1254 μmol g h ), respectively. Furthermore, detailed studies indicate that the H evolution efficiency of the TiO -Au composite NF catalyst is highly dependent on the gold content. This work provides a strategy to develop highly efficient catalysts for H evolution.