Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance and mechanism of platinum modified gold nanoholes

Abstract

So far， it is still a difficult task to develop electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution systems with comparable or even better efficiency than that of Pt systems. This study proves that the nanoporous gold electrode deposited on a flexible substrate coated with a titanium adhesion layer （Pt/Au-NHs/Ti/K） has excellent electrochemical water decomposition under laser irradiation. Localized surface plasmon resonance under light irradiation increases the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity of the material， which shows that its performance is comparable to that of the commercial Pt electrode. Mechanism studies show that the plasma-excited Au nanoholes structure is an effective source of hot electrons， and the underlying Ti-based adhesive layer can effectively promote the separation of hot electrons and holes. In this system， the thermal effect is negligible， and the sudden change of the current density upon laser irradiation is demonstrated by the rapid generation and injection of charge carriers. The result shows that the Pt/Au-NHs/Ti/K electrode still has good stability under 10 mA·cm-2 constant current density for 28 h.

Keywords

• plasmon resonance
• hot carriers
• adhesive layer
• electrocatalysis
• her
• gold nanoholes
• pt electrode