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Molten‐Salt‐Mediated Synthesis of an Atomic Nickel Co‐catalyst on TiO 2 for Improved Photocatalytic H 2 Evolution
Author(s) -
Xiao Mu,
Zhang Lei,
Luo Bin,
Lyu Miaoqiang,
Wang Zhiliang,
Huang Hengming,
Wang Songcan,
Du Aijun,
Wang Lianzhou
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.202001148
Subject(s) - catalysis , molten salt , photocatalysis , nickel , salt (chemistry) , dispersion (optics) , materials science , chemical engineering , nanoparticle , water splitting , inorganic chemistry , nanotechnology , chemistry , metallurgy , organic chemistry , physics , optics , engineering
Atomic co‐catalysts offer high potential to improve the photocatalytic performance, of which the preparation with earth‐abundant elements is challenging. Here, a new molten salt method (MSM) is designed to prepare atomic Ni co‐catalyst on widely studied TiO 2 nanoparticles. The liquid environment and space confinement effect of the molten salt leads to atomic dispersion of Ni ions on TiO 2 , while the strong polarizing force provided by the molten salt promotes formation of strong Ni−O bonds. Interestingly, Ni atoms are found to facilitate the formation of oxygen vacancies (OV) on TiO 2 during the MSM process, which benefits the charge transfer and hydrogen evolution reaction. The synergy of atomic Ni co‐catalyst and OV results in 4‐time increase in H 2 evolution rate compared to that of the Ni co‐catalyst on TiO 2 prepared by an impregnation method. This work provides a new strategy of controlling atomic co‐catalyst together with defects for efficient photocatalytic water splitting.