Nanoscale Multidimensional Pd/TiO 2 /g-C 3 N 4 Catalyst for Efficient Solar-Driven Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production.

Solar-to-fuel conversion is an innovative concept for green energy, attracting many researchers to explore them. Solar-driven photocatalysts have become an essential solution to provide valuable chemicals like hydrogen, hydrocarbon, and ammonia. For sustainable stability under solar irradiation, titanium dioxide is regarded as an acceptable candidate, further showing excellent photocatalytic activity. Incorporating the photo-sensitizers, including noble metal nanoparticles and polymeric carbon-based material, can improve its photoresponse and facilitate the electron transfer and collection. In this study, we synthesized the graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) nanosheet incorporated with high crystalline TiO₂ nanofibers (NF) as 1D/2D heterostructure catalyst for photocatalytic water splitting. The microstructure, optical absorption, crystal structure, charge carrier dynamics, and specific surface area were characterized systematically. The low bandgap of 2D g-C₃N₄ nanosheets (NS) as a sensitizer improves the specific surface area and photo-response in the visible region as the incorporated amount increases. Because of the band structure difference between TiO₂ and g-C₃N₄, constructing the heterojunction formation, the superior separation of electron-hole is observed. The detection of reactive oxygen species and photo-assisted Kelvin probe microscopy are conducted to investigates the possible charge migration. The highest photocatalytic hydrogen production rate of Pd/TiO₂/g-C₃N₄ achieves 11.62 mmol·h⁻¹·g⁻¹ under xenon lamp irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]