Abstract
Zinc oxide absorbs light in the ultraviolet region. This, absorption edge shifting from UV to visible light is very important to attain high efficiency. In this paper, this was achieved by incorporation of platinum into the zinc oxide lattice. Zinc oxide nanospheres and platinum/zinc oxide nanospheres were synthesized by a sol-gel technique in the presence of tetrapropylammonium hydroxide as a surfactant. The prepared materials were characterized by many techniques. The photocatalytic activity of platinum/zinc oxide nanospheres is better than of zinc oxide nanospheres for hydrogen production by 100 times. In addition, platinum/zinc oxide nanospheres exhibit photocatalytic stability for hydrogen production which enable many time reuse of the photocatalyst.