Metal link: A strategy to combine graphene and titanium dioxide for enhanced hydrogen production

Zhouyou Wang, Yichun Yin, Tim Williams, Huanting Wang, Chenghua Sun, Xiwang Zhang

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22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This communication addresses the key issues of titanium dioxide (TiO2) for hydrogen production through water splitting: wide band gap, low conductivity and large over potential,through a novel strategy d metal links, which connect TiO2 and graphene to form a ternary junction (TiO2/Ag@graphene). Silver (Ag) nanoparticles are identified as an excellent link and successfully deposited on TiO2, not only collecting and transferring photo-excited electrons from TiO2 to graphene, but also harvesting more photons through the effect of surface plasmon resonance (SPR). Such TiO2/Ag@graphene junctions improve the hydrogen production rate by three times with respect to the original TiO2. It is expected that the concept of metal links can be employed as a general approach to improve the performance of semiconductor-based photocatalysts.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)22034-22042
Number of pages9
JournalInternational Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Volume41
Issue number47
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Dec 2016

Keywords

  • Titanium dioxide
  • Hydrogen production
  • Metal link
  • Graphene

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