title: Au/PtO nanoparticle-modified g-C3N4 for plasmon-enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution under visible light.
abstract: Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution under visible light is of great potential for renewable energy development. In this work, unalloyed Au/PtO nanoparticle (NP) co-modified graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) photocatalyst is fabricated through a simple photodeposition method. The obtained g-C3N4 composites with co-existed Au and PtO cocatalysts exhibit a considerable enhancement in the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity and possess good stability during cycling experiments. The optimal Au-PtO/g-C3N4 photocatalyst shows a H2 production rate of 16.9 μmol h(-1), which exceeds that of PtO/g-C3N4 and Au/g-C3N4 by a factor of 1.5 and 10.6, respectively. Further characterizations demonstrate that the synergetic action of electron-sink and catalytic effects of PtO along with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of Au NPs, greatly improves the photocatalytic performance of g-C3N4 under visible light. Our study should bring in new insight into the design of effective g-C3N4-based photocatalysts for solar-to-fuel conversion.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan 430070, PR China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan 430070, PR China; Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia. Electronic address: jiaguoyu@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Jiaguo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan 430070, PR China. Electronic address: swcao@whut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Shaowen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cao
keywords: Au/PtO nanoparticles; Cocatalyst; Graphitic carbon nitride; Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution; Surface plasmon resonance