Platinum-induced nanolization and electron-deficient gold in platinum@gold cocatalyst for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen peroxide production.

Simultaneous optimization of the number and intensity of oxygen (O) adsorption on gold (Au) cocatalyst is highly required to greatly improve their interfacial hydrogen peroxide (HO)-production activity. However, it is a great challenge to realize the above effective modulation of Au by traditional photodeposition route. In this study, a platinum (Pt)-induced selective photodeposition method was designed to simultaneously regulate the particle size and electronic structure of Au cocatalyst for boosting the photocatalytic HO-production activity of bismuth vanadate (BiVO) via the selective deposition of Pt@Au core-shell cocatalyst. The photocatalytic results indicate that the as-prepared BiVO/Pt@Au photocatalyst achieves a considerable HO-production activity with a rate of 2752.13 μmol L (AQE = 13.76 %), which is obviously higher than that of BiVO/Pt (137.63 μmol L) and BiVO/Au (475.33 μmol L). It was found that the introduction of Pt successfully induced the formation of Au nanoparticles for enhancing the number of O adsorption. Meanwhile, the spontaneous transfer of free electrons of Au to Pt induces the generation of electron-deficient Au sites, which spontaneously enhances the O-adsorption intensity for facilitating the 2-electron oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), resulting in efficient HO production. The present strategy may be useful for more comprehensively regulating the intensity and number of O adsorption on cocatalysts to facilitate artificial photosynthesis.