It is highly desirable but challenging to optimize the structure of photocatalysts at the atomic scale to facilitate the separation of electron-hole pairs for enhanced performance. Now, a highly efficient photocatalyst is formed by assembling single Pt atoms on a defective TiO2 support (Pt1 /def-TiO2 ). Apart from being proton reduction sites, single Pt atoms promote the neighboring TiO2 units to generate surface oxygen vacancies and form a Pt-O-Ti3+ atomic interface. Experimental results and density functional theory calculations demonstrate that the Pt-O-Ti3+ atomic interface effectively facilitates photogenerated electrons to transfer from Ti3+ defective sites to single Pt atoms, thereby enhancing the separation of electron-hole pairs. This unique structure makes Pt1 /def-TiO2 exhibit a record-level photocatalytic hydrogen production performance with an unexpectedly high turnover frequency of 51423 h-1 , exceeding the Pt nanoparticle supported TiO2 catalyst by a factor of 591.
Keywords: atomic interfaces; photocatalytic hydrogen production; platinum; single atoms; surface defect engineering.
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