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Stable Isolated Metal Atoms as Active Sites for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution
Author(s) -
Xing Jun,
Chen Jian Fu,
Li Yu Hang,
Yuan Wen Tao,
Zhou Ying,
Zheng Li Rong,
Wang Hai Feng,
Hu P.,
Wang Yun,
Zhao Hui Jun,
Wang Yong,
Yang Hua Gui
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201303366
Subject(s) - photocatalysis , catalysis , materials science , noble metal , metal , agglomerate , semiconductor , chemical engineering , atom (system on chip) , hydrogen , water splitting , nanotechnology , photochemistry , chemical physics , chemistry , metallurgy , organic chemistry , composite material , optoelectronics , computer science , embedded system , engineering
The process of using solar energy to split water to produce hydrogen assisted by an inorganic semiconductor is crucial for solving our energy crisis and environmental problems in the future. However, most semiconductor photocatalysts would not exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity without loading suitable co‐catalysts. Generally, the noble metals have been widely applied as co‐catalysts, but always agglomerate during the loading process or photocatalytic reaction. Therefore, the utilization efficiency of the noble co‐catalysts is still very low on a per metal atom basis if no obvious size effect exists, because heterogeneous catalytic reactions occur on the surface active atoms. Here, for the first time, we have synthesized isolated metal atoms (Pt, Pd, Rh, or Ru) stably by anchoring on TiO 2 , a model photocatalystic system, by a facile one‐step method. The isolated metal atom based photocatalysts show excellent stability for H 2 evolution and can lead to a 6–13‐fold increase in photocatalytic activity over the metal clusters loaded on TiO 2 by the traditional method. Furthermore, the configurations of isolated atoms as well as the originality of their unusual stability were analyzed by a collaborative work from both experiments and theoretical calculations.