High quality graphene oxide-CdS-Pt nanocomposites for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Graphene oxide-CdS-Pt (GO-CdS-Pt) nanocomposites with different amounts of Pt nanoparticles were successfully synthesized via the formic acid reduction process followed by a two-phase mixing method. The morphology, crystal phase and optical properties of obtained composites were well characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-vis spectroscopy, Fourier transform IR spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), respectively. The photocatalytic activity of GO-CdS-Pt composites for hydrogen generation was investigated. The results show that the GO-CdS-Pt composite containing 0.5 at% of Pt exhibits the highest hydrogen evolution rate of 123 mL h(-1) g(-1) with strong photostability, which is about 2.5 times higher than that of GO-CdS and 10.3 times higher than that of CdS. The increased photocatalytic hydrogen generation efficiency is attributed to the effective charge separation and decreased anti-recombination with the addition of GO and Pt, as well as the low overpotential of Pt for water splitting. Our findings pave a way to design multi-component graphene-based composites for highly efficient H-2 generation and other applications.