Preparation of Ag/Ga2O3 nanofibers via electrospinning and enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Abstract In this paper, gallium oxide (Ga 2 O 3 ) was modified by in situ silver (Ag) to improve the photocatalytic activity for hydrogen (H 2 ) evolution. The photocatalysts Ga 2 O 3 and Ag/Ga 2 O 3 were synthesized via electrospinning and calcination, and characterized by X-ray diffraction patterns (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). It is observed that the 1% Ag/Ga 2 O 3 had higher activity than that of the pure Ga 2 O 3 for photocatalytic H 2 evolution. Photoluminescence spectra (PL) and transient photocurrent analysis indicated that the high separation efficiency of photo-generated carriers of Ag/Ga 2 O 3 resulted in the high photocatalytic H 2 evolution.