Abstract
Photocatalytic water splitting was performed on TiO2 and metal-containing TiO2 (MTiO2) catalysts under UV light irradiation. TiO2 was added with various metals of different work functions, namely, Pt (5.93 eV), Pd (5.60 eV), Cu (5.10 eV), Ru (4.71 eV), and Ag (4.26 eV). The hydrogen production was found to increase linearly with increasing metal work function. The rate of charge recombination increases with decreasing work function difference between the metal and TiO2. Pt and Pd were highly efficient co-catalysts to TiO2 for hydrogen generation from water due to their larger work function and upward-bent band causing the photoelectrons to be trapped in those metal sites that are eventually consumed during water reduction. Co-catalysts such as Ag, Ru, and Cu were less effective towards water splitting due to downward-bent band gaps that allow the photoelectrons to flow back to TiO2 from the metal which leads to faster charge recombination.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1013-1019 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | ChemistrySelect |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 23 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Funding
. We acknowledge, with thanks, the support of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1444779
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy Chinese Academy of Sciences Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Project Oak Ridge National Laboratory Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment National Science Foundation National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center National Natural Science Foundation of China | 1444779 |
Keywords
- TiO
- co-catalyst
- photocatalysis
- sacrificial reagent
- water splitting
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Chemistry
