Breaking Platinum Nanoparticles to Single‐Atomic Pt‐C<sub>4</sub> Co‐catalysts for Enhanced Solar‐to‐Hydrogen Conversion
Junqing Yan, Yujin Ji, Munkhbayar Batmunkh, Pengfei An, Jing Zhang, Yang Fu, Baohua Jia, Youyong Li, Shengzhong Liu, Jinhua Ye, Tianyi Ma
Abstract
Abstract Effective transfer and utilization of the photogenerated electrons are a key factor for achieving highly efficient H 2 generation by photocatalytic water splitting. Apart from the activity of the co‐catalyst, the interface between the co‐catalyst and semiconductor is of particular importance. Guided by DFT calculations, single‐atom (SA) Pt doped carbon nitride (CN) is successfully synthesized for use as the co‐catalyst to the semiconducting CuS. The catalyst system (Pt1‐CN@CuS) exhibits an enhanced photocatalytic performance for water splitting with a H 2 production rate of 25.4 μmol h −1 and an apparent quantum yield (AQY) of 50.3 % under the illumination of LED‐530. Solar‐to‐hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiency is calculated to be 0.5 % under AM 1.5 illumination. This is the very first investigation of SA as the co‐catalyst, which decreases the overpotential of CN during the water splitting and lowers interfacial resistance of the catalyst/co‐catalyst and co‐catalyst/electrolyte.