Synthesis of TiO2/rGO Nanocomposites with Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Performance and Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

In this paper, a facile and efficient method combined sol–gel method with hydrothermal process was employed for preparing titanium dioxide (TiO[Formula: see text]/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposites without using any reductants or surfactants. This approach leads to the reduction of graphene oxide (GO) and the growth of TiO2 nanorods simultaneously. The results reveal that the TiO2 short nanorods with average size of 15[Formula: see text]nm in length and 10[Formula: see text]nm in diameter were uniformly grown on the rGO sheets with high dispersion. Compared with the pure TiO2 nanoparticles, the TiO2/rGO composites exhibit strong absorption in the visible light range. The photocurrent density of nanocomposites reached 0.826[Formula: see text]mA/cm2 under the simulated sunlight illumination, which is 3.5 times than that of pure TiO2. An enhancement of photocatalytic hydrogen formation rate for the water splitting was observed over the TiO2/rGO composite photocatalysts, the fastest formation rate can reach 889.28[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]mol[Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text]h[Formula: see text] when TiO2 coupling with 1wt.% rGO. Also the hydrogen production rate is about 3.27 times larger than pure TiO2 and 2.23 times than P25 due to the excellent electron trapping and transportation properties of rGO and the synergistic effect between TiO2 and rGO.