Efficient hydrogen production by photocatalytic water-splitting using Pt-doped TiO2 hollow spheres under visible light

Pt doped TiO2 hollow spheres (Pt/HS-TiO2) are prepared by a sol-gel method and characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM and UV-visible absorption spectra. In addition, Pt/HS-TiO2 is employed as the catalyst for photocatalytic hydrogen production from water splitting under visible light irradiation. The results show that Pt/HS-TiO2 with hollow sphere structure presents excellent photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance. The hydrogen generation rate can reach more than 1023.71 μmol h−1 g−1 at room temperature and no obvious deactivation is observed after 30 h irradiation. Furthermore, the reactively of Pt/HS-TiO2 could be reproduced in the repeated cycle. Therefore, Pt/HS-TiO2 is a promising photocatalyst to efficiently generate hydrogen under visible-light irradiation at room temperature.