Boosting the photocatalytic performance of Cu2O for hydrogen generation by Au nanostructures and rGO nanosheets

Yujie Ma; Xindong Wei; Kedeerya Aishanjiang; Yi Fu; Jiamei Le; Hailong Wu

doi:10.1039/d2ra04132d

Boosting the photocatalytic performance of Cu₂O for hydrogen generation by Au nanostructures and rGO nanosheets

RSC Adv. 2022 Nov 2;12(48):31415-31423. doi: 10.1039/d2ra04132d. eCollection 2022 Oct 27.

Authors

Yujie Ma¹, Xindong Wei², Kedeerya Aishanjiang³, Yi Fu¹, Jiamei Le¹, Hailong Wu¹

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center for Biomedicine, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences Shanghai 201318 China wuhl@sumhs.edu.cn.
² ShuGuang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Chinese Traditional Medicine Shanghai 201203 China.
³ Department of Transplantation, Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Shanghai 200025 China.

Abstract

As a narrow band-gap semiconductor, cuprous oxide (Cu₂O) has a relatively high conduction band that can exhibit high driving force for the photocatalytic generation of hydrogen under visible light. Besides, its adjustable morphologies and abundant source also make it possible to be employed as a theoretically optimal photocatalyst. However, the low charge migration and poor stability commonly limit its practical application, and various strategies have been explored in previous studies. In this study, we have novelly utilized Au nanorod (NR) and nanobipyramid (NBP) nanocrystallites as well as rGO nanosheets to boost the photocatalytic activity of Cu₂O over hydrogen generation. The ternary rGO wrapped Au@Cu₂O with a yolk-shelled structure (y-Au@Cu₂O/rGO) was synthesized by a handy and controllable method. When excited by solar light (λ > 400 nm), it was found that the H₂ yields of Cu₂O/rGO, y-Au nanoparticle@Cu₂O/rGO, y-Au NR@Cu₂O/rGO, and y-Au NBP@Cu₂O/rGO were increased in the order of 248, 702, 1582 and 1894 μmol g^-1 in 4 h. The outstanding photocatalytic performances of y-Au NR@Cu₂O/rGO and y-Au NBP@Cu₂O/rGO could be attributed to the combination function of quick electron transfer of rGO and abundant near-infrared-light-driven hot carriers on Au NRs and NBPs that could inject into Cu₂O and then a quick transfer to rGO to participate in H₂ reduction. Besides the above results, it was also found that Cu₂O maintained good stability after several cycling photocatalysis tests, which could be ascribed to the migration of holes from Cu₂O to Au that prevented the photooxidation of Cu₂O. This study may give a guide to fabricating controllable and effective photocatalysts based on plasmonic metals, semiconductors, or two-dimensional nanosheets, which possess full-solar-light-driven photocatalytic activities in the future.