Photocatalytic activity of carbon-incorporated octahedral Co₃O_4

Carbon-incorporated octahedral Co3O4 was synthesized via a novel and environment-friendly one-pot method using degreasing cotton as the sacrificial templates and its photocatalytic ability on producing H2 from water/ethanol solution under simulated solar light condition was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were performed to characterize the structure and morphology of the octahedral Co3O4 with a particle size of about 10 um. The energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) manifested the incorporation of carbon species into octahedral Co3O4 and the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed that the carbon species come from the incomplete combustion of the degreasing cotton. The probable formation procedure of the carbon-incorporated octahedral Co3O4 was proposed. Notably, the resultant Co3O4 exhibited a promising capability on splitting water into H2.