Pt-decorated CuO nanosheets and their application in the visible light photocatalytic water splitting reaction

CuO nanocompositions found many applications in chemistry and physics. However, its large band gap and charge carrier recombination when used as a photo catalyst hinder its effectiveness. In this paper we report a simple sol-gel method for the synthesis of mesoporous CuO nanosheets followed by the application of photo-assisted Pt incorporation to produce a uniformly Pt-decorated mesoporous CuO nanosheets. The nanosheet structure, crystallinity, morphology, and particle-size were confirmed employing XRD measurements, transition electron microscopy. The synthesized mesoporous Pt/CuO nanosheets showed high pore volumes of 0.350 cm(3)/g and a large surface area of 250 m(2)/g. The effectiveness of the photocatalyst was tested via application in the water splitting reaction under visible light and the use of glycerol as a positive hole scavenger. Pt/CuO yielded similar to 5400 mu mol/g of H-2, 7-times higher compared to pure mesoporous CuO. Higher efficiency is explained by narrower band gap, superior light harvesting capacity, and the efficient charge-carrier separation due to the use of glycerol. Photocurrent and photoluminescence were used to show the effect of Pt decoration on the photocatalytic efficiency of the material through the electron transfer from CuO to Pt atoms.