Electrospun Pt/TiO2 hybrid nanofibers for visible-light-driven H2 evolution

• Electrospun Pt/TiO2 hybrid nanofibers exhibit high activities for visible-light-driven H2 evolution.
• The Pt ions doping into TiO2 are responsible for the visible light absorption.
• The hybrid nanofibers with 1.0 at% Pt showed the highest H2 evolution rate.
• The H2 evolution rate is very dependent on the pH value of the sacrificial agent.

One-dimensional (1D) Pt/TiO2 hybrid nanofibers (HNFs) with different concentrations of Pt were fabricated by a facile two-step synthesis route combining an electrospinning technique and calcination process. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) results showed that the Pt nanoparticles (NPs) with the size of 5–10 nm were well dispersed in the TiO2 nanofibers (NFs). Further investigations from the UV–Vis diffuse reflectance (DR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis revealed that some Pt ions were incorporated into the TiO2 lattice as Pt4+ state, which contributed to the visible light absorption of TiO2 NFs. Meanwhile, the Pt2+ ions existing on the surface of Pt NPs resulted in the formation of Pt–O–Ti bond at Pt NPs/TiO2 NFs interfaces that might serve as an effective channel for improving the charge transfer. The as-electrospun Pt/TiO2 HNFs exhibited remarkable activities for photocatalytic H2 evolution under visible light irradiation in the presence of l-ascorbic acid as the sacrificial agent. In particular, the optimal HNFs containing 1.0 at% Pt showed the H2 evolution rate of 2.91 μmol h−1 and apparent quantum efficiency of 0.04% at 420 nm by using only 5 mg of photocatalysts. The higher photocatalytic activity could be ascribed to the appropriate amount of Pt ions doping and excellent electron-sink effect of Pt NPs co-catalysts.

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