Subnano-Sized Pt-Au Alloyed Clusters as Enhanced Cocatalyst for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Ling Cheng; Yuhang Li; Aiping Chen; Yihua Zhu; Chunzhong Li

doi:10.1002/asia.201900453

Subnano-Sized Pt-Au Alloyed Clusters as Enhanced Cocatalyst for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Chem Asian J. 2019 Jun 14;14(12):2112-2115. doi: 10.1002/asia.201900453. Epub 2019 May 21.

Authors

Ling Cheng¹, Yuhang Li¹, Aiping Chen¹, Yihua Zhu¹, Chunzhong Li^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China.
² Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Hierarchical Nanomaterials, School of Chemical Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China.

PMID: 31025555
DOI: 10.1002/asia.201900453

Abstract

Photocatalytic water splitting for H₂ evolution is regarded as the most promising way to overcome the energy and environmental crisis. Pt clusters as a cocatalyst can efficiently enhance the performance of H₂ generation in most photocatalysts, but the activity is still unsatisfied. By tuning the electronic structures of materials, one can develop catalysts with enhanced activity. Here we synthesize a Pt-Au alloy with subnano size as cocatalyst on TiO₂ nanosheets for photocatalytic H₂ generation that shows an outstanding activity with a H₂ generation rate of 80.1 μmol h^-1 for at least 100 h. The activity is twice than the pure Pt cocatalyst, mainly because the optimized hydrogen adsorption energy on Pt cluster is tuned by Au atoms.

Keywords: Pt-Au alloy; confined reaction; mesoscale structures; solar energy conversion; water splitting.