Use of Pt/N-doped mesoporous-assembled nanocrystalline TiO2 for photocatalytic H2 production under visible light irradiation

In this work, nanocrystalline mesoporous-assembled TiO2 photocatalyst was initially synthesized by a sol–gel process with the aid of structure-directing surfactant, N-doped by calcining with urea at a urea:TiO2 molar ratio of 1:1, and then loaded with various Pt contents via the incipient wetness impregnation method for photocatalytic H2 production from water splitting using methanol as a sacrificial electron donor under visible light irradiation. The prepared photocatalysts were systematically characterized by N2 adsorption–desorption analysis, XRD, TEM, and XPS. It was observed that the impregnation of Pt onto the N-doped nanocrystalline mesoporous-assembled TiO2 considerably improved its photocatalytic H2 production activity with the optimum Pt loading content of 1.3 wt.%. The experimental results clearly revealed that the Pt dispersion on the photocatalyst surface played a significant role in enhancing the photocatalytic activity.