Ultra-fine Cu clusters decorated hydrangea-like titanium dioxide for photocatalytic hydrogen production

• Published in: Rare metals 2022-02, Vol.41 (2), p.385-395
• Main Authors: Feng, Ya-Jie, Wang, Yang, Wang, Kai-Wen, Ma, Jiang-Ping, Duan, You-Yu, Liu, Jie, Lu, Xu, Zhang, Bin, Wang, Guo-Yu, Zhou, Xiao-Yuan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomaterials; Catalysts; Charge transfer; Chemistry and Materials Science; Clean energy; Clusters; Decoration; Electronic structure; Energy; Flux density; Hydrogen; Hydrogen evolution; Hydrogen production; Materials Engineering; Materials Science; Metallic Materials; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Noble metals; Optimization; Original Article; Photocatalysis; Physical Chemistry; Titanium; Titanium dioxide
• ISSN: 1001-0521; 1867-7185
• DOI: 10.1007/s12598-021-01815-z

Hydrogen, with the merits of zero emissions and high energy density, is one of the promising green energy sources. Seeking for high efficiency and low-cost catalysts is one of the key issues for hydrogen evolution and its practical applications. Nano-structured metal co-catalysts are widely used to improve the photocatalytic performance via surface electronic structure/properties optimization of the catalyst. Herein, we report ultra-fine (~ 1 nm) Cu clusters decorated hydrangea-like TiO 2 systems for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. The pristine hydrangea-like TiO 2 support shows a promising performance of hydrogen evolution (1.8 mmol·h −1 ·g −1 ), which is ~ 10.7 times higher than that of the commercial P25 (168 μmol·h −1 ·g −1 ). After ultra-fine Cu clusters decoration, a maximal hydrogen evolution performance (3.7 mmol·h −1 ·g −1 ) is achieved in the optimized system 6Cu–TiO 2 (6 wt%). Experimental and theoretical studies demonstrate that the ultra-fine Cu clusters decoration could promote the charge separation and transfer process effectively. The Cu clusters also act as reaction sites for reduction of H 2 O to H 2 . These results are of great importance for the study of Cu-based co-catalyst systems and also shed light on the development of other non-noble metal co-catalysts in photocatalysis hydrogen evolution. Graphical abstract