Abstract
Development of renewable fuels from solar light appears as one of the main current challenges in energy science. A plethora of photocatalysts have been investigated to obtain hydrogen and oxygen from water and solar light in the last decades. However, the photon-to-hydrogen molecule conversion is still far from allowing real implementation of solar fuels. Here we show that 111 facet-oriented gold nanoplatelets on multilayer graphene films deposited on quartz is a highly active photocatalyst for simulated sunlight overall water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen in the absence of sacrificial electron donors, achieving hydrogen production rate of 1.2 molH2 per gcomposite per h. This photocatalytic activity arises from the gold preferential orientation and the strong gold–graphene interaction occurring in the composite system.
Highlights
In the present manuscript we describe that 111 facet-oriented Au nanoplatelets supported on multilayer G (Au/ml-G; Au meaning 111 facet-oriented Au nanoplatelets and ml-G meaning multilayer graphene) is an efficient photocatalyst for the overall water splitting in the absence of any additive reaching on simulated sunlight H2 production rates about 0.9 molH2 per gcomposite per h and apparent quantum yields of 0.08%
It has been previously found that chitosan forms uniform defect- and crack-free films of subnanometric rugosity on arbitrary substrates and that pyrolysis of these films result in the formation of single, few or multilayer G
In view of prior characterization, we propose that the remarkable enhancement of photocatalytic activity for Au/ml-G with respect to the other samples containing or not Au is the result of the one-step pyrolytic preparation procedure that produces a strong Au-G grafting and preferential (111) facet orientation of Au with nanoplatelet morphology
Summary
In the present manuscript we describe that 111 facet-oriented Au nanoplatelets supported on multilayer G (Au/ml-G; Au meaning 111 facet-oriented Au nanoplatelets and ml-G meaning multilayer graphene) is an efficient photocatalyst for the overall water splitting in the absence of any additive reaching on simulated sunlight H2 production rates about 0.9 molH2 per gcomposite per h and apparent quantum yields of 0.08%. In the case of TiO2, it has been found that the lack of visible light photoresponse can be overcome by using Au nanoparticles (NPs) as light harvester and co-catalyst[23,24]. Strong evidence supporting that irradiation at the Au NP surface plasmon band introduces photocatalytic activity in TiO2 was obtained from the coincidence of the absorption spectrum of Au/TiO2 and photoresponse in the visible light[25]. Evidence is presented supporting that the unprecedented photocatalytic activity of Au/ml-G arises from the occurrence of a strong Au-G interaction derived from the unique features of the preparation procedure
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