Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (10): 1677-1688.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(21)63791-9

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Mechanism investigation of PtPd decorated Zn0.5Cd0.5S nanorods with efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production combining with kinetics and thermodynamics

Linhe Zhanga, Fudong Zhangb, Huaqing Xueb, Jianfeng Gaoa, Yong Pengb, Weiyu Songc, Lei Gea()   

  1. aState Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, College of New Energy and Materials, China University of Petroleum Beijing, Beijing 102249, China
    bDepartment of New Energy, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development, PetroChina, Beijing 100083, China
    cDepartment of Applied Chemistry, College of Science, China University of Petroleum Beijing, Beijing 102249, China
  • Received:2021-02-06 Accepted:2021-03-01 Online:2021-06-20 Published:2021-06-20
  • Contact: Lei Ge
  • About author:Professor Lei Ge received his B.S. in 2002 and Ph.D degree in 2006 from Tianjin University. At the end of 2006, he joined the faculty of Department of Materials Science and Engineering, China University of Petroleum Beijing. From 2011 to 2012, he did postdoctoral research at The University of California at Riverside. His research interests currently focus on new materials and energy photocatalysis, electrocatalysis with emphasis on design of new catalysts and control of morphology, microstructure and reaction mechanism for hydrogen production, environmental pollutants degradation, etc. Some of his recent progresses include the novel approaches to design cocatalysts decorated photocatalysts with controllable microstructures, the synthesis of novel hollow structured materials with superior catalytic performance, preparation of metal and nonmetal ions doped electrocatalysts derived from MOFs with high overwall water splitting performance. He has coauthored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and 10 patents. He joined the Editorial Board of Chin. J Catal. as a young member in 2020.
  • Supported by:
    National Key R&D Program of China(2019YFC1907602);Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development, PetroChina(2018YCQ05);National Natural Science Foundation of China(51572295);National Natural Science Foundation of China(21273285);National Natural Science Foundation of China(21003157)

Abstract:

Different components of PtPd bimetallic cocatalysts modified Zn0.5Cd0.5S nanorods have already been designed and prepared in this study. The obtained hybrid photocatalysts were tested and characterized by XPS, ICP-OES and UV-Vis spectra, TEM and EDX tools. Such characterizations can prove the formation of PtPd bimetallic alloy particles in hybrid catalysts. Under visible light illumination, an outstanding hydrogen producing rate of 9.689 mmol·g-1·h-1 and a high AQY efficiency up to 10.43% at 420 nm are achieved in this work. In addition, thermodynamics (DFT calculations) and kinetics (Photoluminescence emission, photocurrent responses, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and surface photovoltage spectra) investigations illustrate that PtPd bimetallic alloy has similar catalytic thermodynamic properties to Pt, which can greatly boost the charge separation and speed up the charge transfer, and decrease the activation energy of H2 generation. Notably, the calculation data suggests that Pt is thermodynamically favorable, while PtPd alloy is kinetically beneficial to H2 production, which can be ascribed to the higher activity of PtPd/Zn0.5Cd0.5S than Pt/Zn0.5Cd0.5S. This work can propose a fresh perspective for preparing high efficiency hybrid photocatalysts.

Key words: PtPd alloy, Zn0.5Cd0.5S nanorods, Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution, DFT calculation