LAUSR

Abstract Fabricating heterostructures has been recognized as an effective strategy to improve visible-light photocatalytic H2 production performance. Therefore, a simple approach based on combining template-assisted liquid-phase deposition and hydrothermal techniques was introduced to synthesize BiVO4-TiO2/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) heterostructure nanocomposites. The ternary hetero-nanostructures were composed of TiO2 nanotubes, with an average diameter of 100 nm and tens micrometers in length, BiVO4 nanoparticles and various amounts of rGO nanosheets. The highest photocatalytic H2 production rate of 1427.1 μmol.h − 1 g − 1 with an apparent quantum yield of 6.4% at 420 nm was achieved at optimum rGO content (3 wt.%) under visible-light irradiation, which was 2.5 and 1.5 times higher than that of TiO2 nanotubes)563.5 μmol.h − 1 g − 1) and BiVO4-TiO2 (915.7 μmol.h − 1 g − 1), respectively. The excellent enhancing effect of rGO on photocatalytic performance of the heterojunction formed between these materials was attributed to the large surface area, light absorption capacity due to band gap engineering, and separation of photo-generated charge carriers. It demonstrates the design of the ternary BiVO4-TiO2/rGO hetero-nanostructures that was proposed in the present strategy could effectively separate the electron-hole pairs for sustainable photocatalytic H2 production, as was verified by PL, TRF and EIS photospectroscopy measurements.