CoNi bimetallic alloy cocatalyst-modified TiO2 nanoflowers with enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

In terms of improving photocatalytic hydrogen production performance, inexpensive and earth-rich cocatalysts have become promising alternatives to precious metals. Herein, a novel CoNi-TiO2 photocatalyst composed of TiO2 nanoflowers and CoNi alloy was pre-pared by hydrothermal and chemical reduction methods. Various characterizations and test results have confirmed that the further improvement of the photocatalytic perfor-mance of the CoNi-TiO2 photocatalyst is mainly due to the fact that the bimetallic CoNi alloy can accelerate charge transfer and inhibit the recombination of photo-induced car-riers. The hydrogen production rate of the prepared CoNi-TiO2 is about 24 times higher than that of the pristine TiO2, and its hydrogen production rate value can reach 6580.9 mmol g-1 h-1, and showing comparable photocatalytic performance to 0.5 wt% Pt-TiO2. In addition, combined with the characterization results, a probable mechanism for enhanced photocatalytic performance was proposed. This study provides favorable enlightenment for the design of a series of highly efficient non-precious metal TiO2-based photocatalysts.(c) 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.