Kinetic performance of TiO2/Pt/reduced graphene oxide composites in the photocatalytic hydrogen production

Among the different alternatives to generate hydrogen, photocatalysis can play an important role since it is based on the use of solar radiation and a suitable semiconductor. Starting from the most commonly researched TiO2 catalyst, many efforts have been devoted to improve its efficacy. This work, based on the potential of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) to carry charges and platinum nanoparticles to act as efficient traps for photogenerated electrons, assesses the performance of synthesized binary and ternary photocatalysts (TiO2/rGO, TiO2/Pt and TiO2/rGO/Pt) for hydrogen generation. The addition of rGO to TiO2 almost duplicates (1.95 factor) the hydrogen production rate compared to bare TiO2. Moreover, the binary TiO2/Pt photocatalyst reported the best performance, with an increase in the hydrogen production rate by a factor of 15.26 compared to TiO2. However, the ternary catalyst performed worse than the binary TiO2/Pt probably due to the use of non-optimized co-catalyst ratios. Since the addition of rGO reduces the cost of the catalyst, the trade-off between the catalyst performance and cost is worth of future research. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.