Issue 44, 2020

Triethanolamine-assisted photodeposition of non-crystalline CuxP nanodots for boosting photocatalytic H2 evolution of TiO2

Abstract

Exploiting highly efficient, noble metal-free, and ultra-small H2-evolution cocatalysts is crucial to promoting the photocatalytic water splitting reaction. Herein, ultra-small non-crystalline CuxP nanodots (CuxP-ND) as an efficient H2-evolution cocatalyst were coupled on the TiO2 surface via a simple triethanolamine (TEOA)-assisted photodeposition strategy. Owing to the initially uniform anchoring of the Cu(TEOA)2+ precursor on the TiO2 surface, the final CuxP nanodots show a very small size of 2–5 nm and are homogeneously distributed on the surface of the photocatalyst. The obtained CuxP-ND/TiO2 photocatalysts displayed a significantly enhanced ultraviolet-light H2-production activity and the CuxP-ND/TiO2(1 wt%) sample displayed a maximum hydrogen-production rate of 93.5 μmol h−1 with an apparent quantum efficiency of 7.7%, which is a 30-fold increase compared to bare TiO2. The boosted hydrogen generation can be ascribed to the fact that the ultra-small non-crystalline CuxP nanodots can not only induce the formation of a built-in electric field to improve the rapid transfer of photogenerated electrons, but also provide interfacial hydrogen-production sites to dramatically enhance the H2-generation rate. These new non-crystalline CuxP nanodots with a green and facile preparation procedure can pave a new way to exploit efficient co-catalysts for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.

Graphical abstract: Triethanolamine-assisted photodeposition of non-crystalline CuxP nanodots for boosting photocatalytic H2 evolution of TiO2

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
31 Jul 2020
Accepted
30 Sep 2020
First published
02 Oct 2020

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2020,8, 15816-15822

Triethanolamine-assisted photodeposition of non-crystalline CuxP nanodots for boosting photocatalytic H2 evolution of TiO2

J. Xu, W. Zhong, H. Yu, X. Hong, J. Fan and J. Yu, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2020, 8, 15816 DOI: 10.1039/D0TC03641B

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