Synthesis of p-Co3O4/n-TiO2 Nanoparticles for Overall Water Splitting under Visible Light Irradiation

p-Co3O4/n-TiO2 nanoparticles (similar to 400 nm) for photocatalysis were prepared via carbon assisted method and sol-gel method in this work. The paper also studied the application of visible light illuminated p-Co3O4/n-TiO2 nanocomposites cocatalyst to the overall pure water splitting into H-2 and O-2. In addition, the H-2 evolution rate of the p-Co3O4/n-TiO2 nanocomposites is 25% higher than that of the pure Co3O4 nanoparticles. Besides, according to the results of the characterizations, the scheme of visible light photocatalytic water splitting is proposed, the Co3O4 of the nanocomposites is excited by visible light, and the photo-generated electrons and holes existing on the conduction band of Co3O4 and valence band of TiO2 have endowed the photocatalytic evolution of H-2 and O-2 with higher efficiency. The optimal evolution rate of H-2 and O-2 is 8.16 mu mol/h.g and 4.0 mu mol/h.g, respectively.