Facet-engineered TiO<sub>2</sub> drives photocatalytic activity and stability of supported noble metal clusters during H<sub>2</sub> evolution.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37789037.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-41976-2 and PMC identifier 10547715.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Metal clusters supported on TiO2 are widely used in many photocatalytic applications, including pollution control and production of solar fuels. Besides high photoactivity, stability during the photoreaction is another essential quality of high-performance photocatalysts, however systematic studies on this attribute are absent for metal clusters supported on TiO2. Here we have studied, both experimentally and with first-principles simulation methods, the stability of Pt, Pd and Au clusters prepared by ball milling on nanoshaped anatase nanoparticles preferentially exposing {001} (plates) and {101} (bipyramids) facets during the photogeneration of hydrogen. It is found that Pt/TiO2 exhibits superior stability than Pd/TiO2 and Au/TiO2, and that {001} facet-based photocatalysts always are more stable than their {101} analogous regardless of the considered metal species. The loss of stability associated with cluster sintering, which is facilitated by the transfer of photoexcited carriers from the metal species to the neighbouring Ti and O atoms, most significantly and detrimentally affects the H2-evolution photoactivity.