Palladium Quantum Dots Sensitized TiO_2 Nanotube Arrays for Highly Efficient Photoelectrocatalytic Hydrogen Generation

摘要

In order to further enhance photoeletrocatalytic reactivity, it is desirable to develop a facile and effective technique to obtain high quality Pd@TNTAs with homogeneous dispersion and small enough particle size down to few of nm Pd quantum dots (QDs) on the geometrically-ordered TiO_2 nanotube arrays [1]. In this work, we report a facile synthetic strategy of preparing novel Pd QDs sensitized TiO_2 nanotube arrays (Pd@TiO_2NTs) and their excellent performance in photoelectrocatalytic hydrogen production. Using the prepared Pd@TiO_2NTs (2.05 wt%) both as photoanode and photocathode, a significantly enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen generation rate of about 592 μmol.h~(-1).cm~(-2) was obtained under 320 mW-cm~(-2) irradiation with nearly 100% of an incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) value. It demonstrates that the Pd QDs sensitized TiO_2 nanotube arrays can remarkably improving the photocatalytic efficiency for hydrogen generation.