Highly Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production Performance of Heterostructured TiC/TiO/rGO Composites.

There has been a dire need for the exploration of renewable clean hydrogen energy recourses in recent years. In this work, we investigated the photocatalytic hydrogen production of heterostructured TiC/TiO/rGO composites. TiC/TiO/rGO heterojunction nanocomposites were synthesized using two-step calcination and hydrothermal methods, and the optimum in situ growth ratio of TiO of 71.8% (/) and rGO mass ratio (//m) of 12% were obtained. The target photocatalyst presented an outperforming photocatalytic hydrogen production performance of 1671.85 μmol·g hydrogen production capacity in 4 h, with the maximum hydrogen production rate of 808.11 μmol·g·h in the first hour being 3.08 times the maximum hydrogen production rate of bare TiO (262.66 μmol·g·h). The excellent hydrogen production performance was due to the formed rutile TiO and the constructed heterojunction of TiC/TiO/rGO, where rGO provided different electron transport channels, and made charge transfer easier, and restrained the recombination efficiency of electrons and holes.