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Nano Research 2017, 10(5): 1662-1672 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1390-5
Research Article | Issue | Published: 27 February 2017

High activity of hot electrons from bulk 3D graphene materials for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production

Show Author's Information Yanhong Lu1,3,§,  Bo Ma2,§,  Yang Yang1,2,  Erwei Huang2,  Zhen Ge1,2,  Tengfei Zhang1,2,  Suling Zhang3,  Landong Li2( ),  Naijia Guan2,  Yanfeng Ma1,2,  Yongsheng Chen1,2( )
State Key Laboratory and Institute of Elemento-Organic Chemistry Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin) Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials and the Centre of Nanoscale Science and Technology Institute of Polymer Chemistry College of Chemistry Nankai UniversityTianjin 300071 China
School of Material Science and Engineering & National Institute for Advanced Materials Nankai UniversityTianjin 300350 China
School of Chemistry & Material Science Langfang Teachers UniversityLangfang 065000 China

§ These authors contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
graphene, TiO2, water splitting, hydrogen production, hot electron
Cite this article:
Lu Y, Ma B, Yang Y, et al. High activity of hot electrons from bulk 3D graphene materials for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production. Nano Research, 2017, 10(5): 1662-1672. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1390-5
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Design and synthesis of efficient photocatalysts for hydrogen production via water splitting are of great importance from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. Many metal-based semiconductors have been explored for this purpose in recent decades. Here, for the first time, an entirely carbon-based material, bulk three-dimensionally cross-linked graphene (3DG), has been developed as a photocatalyst for hydrogen production. It exhibits a remarkable hydrogen production rate of 270 μmol·h−1·gcat−1 under full-spectrum light via a hot/free electron emission mechanism. Furthermore, when combined with the widely used semiconductor TiO2 to form a TiO2/3DG composite, it appears to become a more efficient hydrogen production photocatalyst. The composite achieves a production rate of 1, 205 μmol·h−1·gcat−1 under ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) light and a 7.2% apparent quantum efficiency at 350 nm due to the strong synergetic effects between TiO2 and 3DG.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

High activity of hot electrons from bulk 3D graphene materials for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production

Show Author's information Yanhong Lu1,3,§, Bo Ma2,§, Yang Yang1,2, Erwei Huang2, Zhen Ge1,2, Tengfei Zhang1,2, Suling Zhang3, Landong Li2( ), Naijia Guan2, Yanfeng Ma1,2, Yongsheng Chen1,2( )
State Key Laboratory and Institute of Elemento-Organic Chemistry Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin) Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials and the Centre of Nanoscale Science and Technology Institute of Polymer Chemistry College of Chemistry Nankai UniversityTianjin 300071 China
School of Material Science and Engineering & National Institute for Advanced Materials Nankai UniversityTianjin 300350 China
School of Chemistry & Material Science Langfang Teachers UniversityLangfang 065000 China

§ These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Design and synthesis of efficient photocatalysts for hydrogen production via water splitting are of great importance from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. Many metal-based semiconductors have been explored for this purpose in recent decades. Here, for the first time, an entirely carbon-based material, bulk three-dimensionally cross-linked graphene (3DG), has been developed as a photocatalyst for hydrogen production. It exhibits a remarkable hydrogen production rate of 270 μmol·h−1·gcat−1 under full-spectrum light via a hot/free electron emission mechanism. Furthermore, when combined with the widely used semiconductor TiO2 to form a TiO2/3DG composite, it appears to become a more efficient hydrogen production photocatalyst. The composite achieves a production rate of 1, 205 μmol·h−1·gcat−1 under ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) light and a 7.2% apparent quantum efficiency at 350 nm due to the strong synergetic effects between TiO2 and 3DG.

Keywords: graphene, TiO2, water splitting, hydrogen production, hot electron

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 06 October 2016
Revised: 21 November 2016
Accepted: 23 November 2016
Published: 27 February 2017
Issue date: May 2017

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2016YFA0200200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51633002, 51472124, 51273093, and 51502125), the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province of China (No. E2016408035), and Science Research Project of Langfang Teachers University (No. LSLB201401).

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