Fabrication of Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Quantum Dots-Cu2O Catalysts for Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Development of efficient visible light driven photocatalysts for water splitting has attracted great research interest. Herein, a novel H-2-producing nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (NGQDs)-Cu2O was successfully constructed and synthesized. The as-prepared NGQDs-Cu2O photocatalysts were benefited for light harvesting and charge separation and showed highly efficient photocatalytic property for hydrogen production by water splitting. Results displayed that the amount of NGQDs exhibited significant influence for H-2 production, and the optimum sample of 3% NGQDs-Cu2O performed the highest hydrogen-evolution rate of 22.6 mu mol h(-1) g(-1), which was about 2 times higher than that of the pure Cu2O (10.1 mu mol h(-1) g(-1)). By further study, the enhanced photocatalytic performance could be ascribed to the crucial role of NGQDs, which widely improve the separation of photogenerated electron-hole pair's.