Versatile Dendritic Silica & Titania‐supported Platinum Catalyst for Highly Efficient Water Splitting and p‐Nitrophenol Reduction

Abstract p ‐Nitrophenol acts as a notorious environmentally hazardous material. The reduction of nitro group (‐NO 2 ) to amino group (‐NH 2 ) with the assistance of catalyst has been regarded as one of the most reasonable methods to dispose p ‐nitrophenol. Herein, for the first time, we construct a novel dendritic silica & titania‐supported platinum (Pt) nanocatalyst which can reduce p ‐nitrophenol with the bigger apparent first‐order rate constant than almost all previously reported. Besides, the catalyst can split water under simulated sunlight with a H 2 yield of 493.6 μmol ⋅ −1 in 5 hours, nearly 240‐folds of dendritic silica‐supported Pt. The improvements in catalytic performances can be attributed to special structural advantages of dendritic support, chemical composition of anatase titania (TiO 2 ), and localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect from Pt nanoparticles (NPs). This catalyst exhibits desirable robustness, stability, and reusability, because of the hybrid architecture and the high affinity of the functionalized interface to Pt NPs.