TiO2 nanotubes decorated with Au nanoparticles for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Generation under UV-Visible and Visible Light Irradiations

Abstract The development of stable and active TiO2 nanotubes (NTs) decorated with plasmonic gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) represents a strategy for charge-transfer processes improvements. However, organic capping ligands used for Au NPs synthesis usually remain on the surface of the metal, leading to poor Schottky junctions between Au and TiO2. Herein, we report on the synthesis of a nanotubular matrix of TiO2 decorated with gold without the need of ligands. The Au NPs mean diameter (12 nm) was similar to all the samples prepared, no matter the metal loading. Such materials enabled to use the metal as a cocatalyst for photogeneration of H2under UV and visible light irradiations. We found an optimum metal loading (2.6 wt% Au) that enabled an improvement of 760% on the H2 production when compared to the bare TiO2 NTs under UV-Vis irradiation. In addition, such catalyst was able to perform photogeneration of H2 under visible irradiation, which was not conceivable before the metal immobilization over the TiO2 NTs. The yield obtained was comparable to the observed when the catalyst was used under UV-Vis conditions. The produced materials were fully characterized by UV-Vis, XRD, TEM, and SEM.