EVALUATION OF THE GRAPHENE OXIDE (GO) ROLE IN THE PHOTOCATALYTIC GENERATION OF HYDROGEN IN BINARY (GO-CdS) AND TERNARY (Pt-GO-CdS) SYSTEMS

Water splitting is a promising process to produce hydrogen from friendly feedstock and solar energy. In this work we have evaluated binary (GO-CdS) and ternary (Pt-GO-CdS) hybrid photocatalysts for hydrogen production assisted by visible light irradiation. Cadmium sulfide and composites with GO were prepared by sonochemical and thermal methods. GO addition took place by different strategies: during the synthesis or by mechanical mixture. A variety of configurations was tested and the best performance in hydrogen production among all materials was the ternary photocatalyst named Pt(GO/CdSTT), whose hydrogen production rate was 651 µmol gcat-1 h-1. Such material was obtained by thermal method with GO addition during the synthesis. Additionally, the XRD and Raman analyses have confirmed the GO photoreduction during photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.