Oxygen Vacancy-Induced Construction of CoO/h-TiO2 Z-Scheme Heterostructures for Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Environmentally friendly catalysts with excellent performance and low cost are critical for photocatalysis. Herein, using hydrogenated TiO2 (h-TiO2) nanosheets with enriched oxygen vacancies as the support, two-dimensional CoO/hTiO2 Z-scheme heterostructures are fabricated for hydrogen production through photocatalytic water splitting. It is revealed that the oxygen vacancies in h-TiO2 can inhibit the oxidation of Co2+ into high-valence Co3+ during the hydrothermal reaction and thermal treatment processes. A CoO/h-TiO2 Z-scheme heterostructure possesses a space charge region and a built-in electric field at the interface, and oxygen vacancies in h-TiO2 can provide more reactive sites, which synergistically improve the separation and transportation of photogenerated carriers. As a result, the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate achieves 129.75 mu molmiddoth-1 (with 50 mg of photocatalysts) on the optimized CoO/h-TiO2 heterostructures. This work provides a new design idea for the preparation of excellent TiO2-based photocatalysts.

Automated summary

Environmentally friendly catalysts with excellent performance and low cost are crucial for photocatalysis. In this study, a two-dimensional CoO/h-TiO2 heterostructure was fabricated using hydrogenated TiO2 nanosheets with enriched oxygen vacancies as the support, and it showed a significantly improved photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate through effective inhibition of Co2+ oxidation and enhanced separation and transportation of photogenerated carriers.