Visible-Light-Driven GO/Rh-SrTiO3 Photocatalyst for Efficient Overall Water Splitting

Abstract

The combining of the heterostructure construction and active sites modification to remodel the traditional wide-band-gap semiconductor SrTiO3 for improving visible light absorption capacity and enhancing photocatalytic performance is greatly desired. Herein, we research a novel GO/Rh-SrTiO3 nanocomposite via a facile hydrothermal method. The champion GO/Rh-SrTiO3 nanocomposite exhibits the superior photocatalytic overall water splitting performance with an H2 evolution rate of 55.83 μmol∙g−1∙h−1 and O2 production rate of 23.26 μmol∙g−1∙h−1, realizing a breakthrough from zero with respect to the single-phased STO under visible light (λ ≥ 420 nm). More importantly, a series of characterizations results showed that significantly improving photocatalytic performance originated mainly from the construction of heterostructure and more active sites rooted in Rh metal. In addition, the possible photocatalytic reaction mechanisms and the transport behavior of photogenerated carriers have been revealed in deeper detail. This work provides an effective strategy for heterostructure construction to improve solar utilization through vastly expanding visible light response ranges from traditional UV photocatalysts.