Enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution by combining water soluble graphene with cobalt salts

• Jing Wang,
• Ke Feng,
• Hui-Hui Zhang,
• Bin Chen,
• Zhi-Jun Li,
• Qing-Yuan Meng,
• Li-Ping Zhang,
• Chen-Ho Tung and
• Li-Zhu Wu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1167–1174, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.128

• ) in 4 h with respect to the initial concentration of the added cobalt salts was shown to be 5.6 times larger than that without graphene. Keywords: cobalt salts; earth-abundant catalyst; photocatalysis; photocatalytic hydrogen evolution; water-dispersible sulfonated-graphene; Introduction

• , Beijing 100190, P. R. China 10.3762/bjnano.5.128 Abstract There is tremendous effort put in the pursuit for cheap and efficient catalysts for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution systems. Herein, we report an active catalyst that uses the earth-abundant element cobalt and water-dispersible sulfonated

• graphene. The photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity of the catalyst was tested by using triethanolamine (TEOA) as electron donor and eosin Y (EY) as the photosensitizer under LED irradiation at 525 nm. Hydrogen was produced constantly even after 20 h, and the turnover number (TON) reached 148 (H2/Co