Efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production from water over a CuO and carbon fiber comodified TiO2 nanocomposite photocatalyst

•A CuO/CF/TiO2 catalyst shows good photocatalytic activity for H2 evolution from ethanol solution.•Co-modification of TiO2 with CuO and carbon fiber enhances the activity greatly.•CuO behaves as the H2 evolution cocatalyst and the carbon fiber serves as the electron transporter.•The activity of CuO/CF/TiO2 is 45 and 2 times higher than those of TiO2 and CuO/TiO2, respectively.•Carbon fiber decreases the solid state interface resistance and charge transfer resistance.

An efficient composite catalyst, CuO/CF/TiO2 (where CF represents catalytic grown carbon fiber and TiO2 is the commercial product P25), is prepared with a wet impregnation and calcination process and is applied in the photo stimulated catalytic water splitting. The modification of TiO2 with CuO, serving as the H2 evolution cocatalyst, and carbon fiber, behaving as the electron transporter, enhances greatly the overall activity of the material. The activity of CuO/CF/TiO2 with 1 wt% CF is 45 times higher than that of TiO2 and 2 times higher than that of CuO/TiO2. CF and CuO play a synergistic role in decreasing the recombination rate of the photogenerated carriers in TiO2 bulk phase. The CF in the composite catalyst extends the reaction range, and makes the reaction proceeds on both the surface of CuO intimately contacting with TiO2 particles and the surfaces of the CuO particles which do not in contact with TiO2 but in contact with CF.

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