Enhanced Photocatalytic H₂ Production on Three-Dimensional Porous CeO₂/Carbon Nanostructure

Abstract

A versatile biotemplate method is developed for the fabrication of porous carbon tubes embedded with CeO2 quantum dots (QDs) as a high-efficiency photocatalyst by using bean sprouts. Interestingly, this novelly hierarchical three-dimensional porous CeO2 QDs/carbon exhibits an enhanced hydrogen evolution feature from water splitting under xenon lamp irradiation. The excellent performance of the said material is attributed to the synergistic effect between CeO2 QDs and carbon films, inlaid ceria QDs structure, biomorphic porous architecture, a high specific surface area, and abundant oxygen vacancies. This encouraging result reveals a reproducible approach for processing metal oxide QDs/carbon photocatalysts with high reactivity and shows the possibility for energy application.