Highly efficient graphene oxide/porphyrin photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution and the interfacial electron transfer

• Novel graphene oxide/porphyrin composites were achieved with metal ions as linkers.
• Implanting metal ions can modify the morphology and the structure of the composite.
• Metal ions can facilitate the separation of electron–hole pairs in the composite.
• The composites showed high activity for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.

By implanting metal ions as interfacial linkers of the graphene oxide (GO) and 5,15–diphenyl–10,20–di(4–pyridyl)porphyrin (DPyP), a serial of novel GO–DPyP nanocomposites were achieved. In these composites, GO and DPyP were bridged by the metal ions by means of electrostatic interaction and coordination interaction. It was shown that the metal ions can modify the morphology and structure of the GO–DPyP nanocomposite, and facilitate electron transfer between GO and DPyP. Furthermore, the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity and electron transfer mechanism were investigated. The results demonstrated that the strong interaction and efficient electron transfer between the metal ions and DPyP/GO were the important reasons for the improvement of the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance. Implanting metal ions in the interface of graphene oxide and porphyrin is a simple and efficient approach to optimize the transfer pathway of photogenerated electrons and improve catalytic performance of nanocomposites.

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