Developing appropriate photocatalyst with high efciency is still the basic strategy for practical application of emerging technology. Herein, non-noble metal copper (Cu) nanoparticles were in situ hybrided with TiO 2 by a chemical reduction method. The crystal phase and structure were characterized by XRD, SEM, and TEM measurements. Hydrogen production results showed that Cu nanoparticles signicantly improved the photocatalytic hydrogen production rate. The hydrogen production rate was as high as 24160.69 mmol g 1 h 1 at 100 C, which was 36.25 and 8.46 times higher than the hydrogen production rates of pure TiO 2 and 0.13 wt% Cu/TiO 2 at room temperature, respectively. PL spectra, UVevis spectra, IR images and photoelectrochemical measurements showed that the plasma-induced photothermal effect of Cu/TiO 2 nanoparticles, which raised the tem- perature of the reaction system and promoted photothermal catalytic performance. Briey, this work provides a facile fabrication method of noble-metal-free photocatalysts featuring in low-cost and high efciency. In the future, coupling the photothermal effect of plas- monic Cu to further speed up the kinetics should be another promising research direction for further improving hydrogen production.

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