Noble metals on anodic TiO2 nanotubes mouths: Thermal dewetting of minimal Pt co-catalyst loading leads to significantly enhanced photocatalytic H2 generation

The least is the best. We introduce a technique to strongly reduce Pt use for photocatalytic hydrogen generation from TiO2 nanotubes. By site-selectively depositing thin layers of Pt only at the mouth of the nanotubes and by a subsequent thermal dewetting step, we achieve an outstanding photocatalytic improvement with minimal amounts of co-catalyst.