Photocatalytic water splitting to hydrogen production of reduced graphene oxide/SiC under visible light

Abstract

We report a method to realize the H2 production and graphene-oxide (GO) reduction simultaneously over GO/SiC composite under visible light irradiation with KI as sacrifice reagent. The weight content of GO is regulated in the reaction system. The rate of H2 production reaches to 95 μL/h with 1% GO content in GO/SiC composite system, which is 1.3 times larger compared to the case in pure SiC NPs under visible light. The reduced-GO sheet can serve as an electron collector and transporter to efficiently separate the photo-generated electron-hole pairs, lengthening the lifetime of the charge carriers effectively. © 2013 American Institute of Physics.