SrTiO3-TiO2 Litchi-Like Hollow Nanospheres for Superior Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production

SrTiO3 is a new type of inorganic non-metallic photocatalyst with unique properties, which has excellent performance in the decomposition of water to produce hydrogen. However, the existing SrTiO3-based photocatalysts still have the problems of low light absorption capacity and low electron and hole separation efficiency, resulting in too low hydrogen production efficiency. In order to solve these two problems, a series of SrTiO3-TiO2 hollow structure nanospheres were prepared by in-situ growth of SrTiO(3 )nanocube crystals on TiO2 solid by hydrothermal method. By controlling the time of hydrothermal reaction to regulate the morphology of hydrothermal reaction products, the hollow structure similar to lychee shell was prepared, so that the incident light could be reflected multiple times inside. Through the hydrothermal of SrTiO3 on the surface of TiO2, to complete the coverage of SrTiO(3 )on the surface of TiO(2 )to construct SrTiO3-TiO2 heterojunction, which improves the separation efficiency of photogenerated electrons and holes. The photocatalytic hydrogen production performance of SrTiO3-TiO2 heterojunction is achieved 374.07 mu mol center dot g(-1)center dot h(-1), and it is 2.35 times higher than pure sample. This work provides a new simple method for preparing high-yield hydrogen photocatalysts and provides a new solution for the conversion of solar energy to hydrogen energy. [GRAPHICS]