Engineering the Atomic Interface with Single Platinum Atoms for Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production

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Abstract
It is highly desirable but challenging to optimize the structure of photocatalysts at the atomic scale to facilitate the separation of electron–hole pairs for enhanced performance. Now, a highly efficient photocatalyst is formed by assembling single Pt atoms on a defective TiO2 support (Pt1/def‐TiO2). Apart from being proton reduction sites, single Pt atoms promote the neighboring TiO2 units to generate surface oxygen vacancies and form a Pt‐O‐Ti3+ atomic interface. Experimental results and density functional theory calculations demonstrate that the Pt‐O‐Ti3+ atomic interface effectively facilitates photogenerated electrons to transfer from Ti3+ defective sites to single Pt atoms, thereby enhancing the separation of electron–hole pairs. This unique structure makes Pt1/def‐TiO2 exhibit a record‐level photocatalytic hydrogen production performance with an unexpectedly high turnover frequency of 51423 h−1, exceeding the Pt nanoparticle supported TiO2 catalyst by a factor of 591.
Funding Information
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (21671117, 21871159, 21890383, 21703219, 51872008)
  • National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (BX20180160)
  • China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M640113)

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