Coupling Photothermal Effect into Efficient Photocatalytic H2 Production by Using a Plate-like Cu@Ni Core-shell Cocatalyst

Graphical How do you wave ? In this work, we realized the coupling of localized photothermal effect into a cocatalytic material by developing a unique core-shell Cu@Ni nanoplate cocatalyst for efficient photocatalytic H 2 production from water. Specifically, Cu nanoplate could induce localized hot spots on Ni nanoparticles via a visible-light-driven surface plasma resonance effect. As a result, photogenerated electrons transferred from g-C 3 N 4 to Ni, could be elevated to a more energetic state, leading to a substantially improved photocatalytic activity. The general moderate reaction condition in solar photocatalytic hydrogen production (i. e., near ambient pressure, room temperature) makes interfacial mass and energy transfer extremely slow, even by employing a cocatalytic material (usually in the form of noble metal nanoparticles or their counterparts). Herein, by fabricating well-defined Cu@Ni core-shell nanoplate cocatalyst and further incorporating it with a g-C 3 N 4 photocatalyst, we demonstrate that interfacial processes could be significantly improved by coupling localized photothermal effect into a cocatalyst. Specifically, Cu nanoplate can induce localized strong hot spots on Ni nanoparticles via a visible-light-driven surface plasma resonance effect. As a result, photogenerated electrons transferred from g-C 3 N 4 to Ni, could be elevated to a more energetic state, leading to a substantially improved photocatalytic activity toward H 2 evolution from water. The highest hydrogen generation rate reaches 55 μmol h −1 g −1 , 110 times of that pristine g-C 3 N 4 . This work indicates that photoelectric and photothermal effects can be effectively coupled by integrating metal hetero-nanoparticles.