Colloidal CdS nanorods decorated with subnanometer sized Pt clusters for photocatalytic hydrogen generation

Colloidal CdS nanorods have been decorated with extremely small, subnanometer sized Pt clusters and used for photocatalytic hydrogen production. We also show highly selective decoration of CdS nanorods with uniform, relatively large (4.8 nm mean size) Pt nanoparticles, with a remarkably high (90%) yield of samples decorated with exactly one Pt particle per rod. Samples with large Pt particles show no increase in hydrogen evolution rate compared to small Pt clusters, which implies that efficient hydrogen production utilizing CdS nanorods with reduced amounts of Pt is possible. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3480613]