In situ fabrication of all amorphous TiO2-coupled-MoSx photocatalysts for on-demand photocatalytic hydrogen production by using UV light†
Abstract
Intergrating in situ fabrication of photocatalysts with on-demand photocatalytic H2 evolution from water splitting holds immense promise for enhancing the H2 utilization efficiency. Herein, all amorphous TiO2-coupled-MoSx photocatalysts (a-TM) are in situ fabricated by hydrolyzing the Ti precursor followed by photochemical reduction of (NH4)2MoS4 in the reaction solution for on-demand photocatalytic H2 evolution reaction (HER). Thanks to the intimate contact between a-TiO2 and the a-MoSx cocatalyst, as well as abundant active sites on the a-MoSx cocatalyst, the photogenerated electrons can rapidly transfer from the excited a-TiO2 to the well-interconnected a-MoSx, leading to efficient charge separation, thereby greatly promoting the kinetics of the HER. The as-fabricated a-TM2 with 2 mol% a-MoSx exhibits the highest H2 evolution rate of 696.2 μmol h−1 under UV light, 2.7 times higher than that of benchmark P25 loaded with a 2 mol% a-MoSx cocatalyst (PM2). This work introduces a new concept of in situ fabricating semiconductor-based photocatalysts for on-demand photocatalytic HER at a large scale.