Discharge reactor for fabricating efficient supported metal catalysts at room temperature in the absence of H2

Supported metal catalysts have been widely applied and commonly fabricated through the H₂ reduction process. Herein, we develop a H₂-free room-temperature discharge-driven reduction (RT-DR) reactor for fabricating supported metal catalysts at room temperature without H₂. By RT-DR reactor, a catalyst with pseudo-boehmite (PB) as support (CdS/Pt/PB) is fabricated. In visible-light-driven photocatalytic H₂O splitting to H₂, CdS/Pt/PB shows a H₂ evolution rate of 1132 μmol h⁻¹, which is greatly enhanced than that on catalyst prepared by traditional H₂-reduction (633 μmol h⁻¹). RT-DR reactor is also used to prepare a catalyst with low sodium PB (LSPB) as support (CdS/Pt/LSPB). In visible-light-driven photocatalytic H₂O splitting to H₂, CdS/Pt/LSPB shows a H₂ evolution rate of 2554 μmol h⁻¹, which is 2.5 times higher than that on catalyst prepared by traditional H₂-reduction (1029 μmol h⁻¹). Thus, RT-DR reactor has high efficiency and universality in preparing catalysts, thus offering a great potential for commercialization.