Production of methanol from carbon dioxide via photocatalysis route

Transparent conducing thin films of a P-type Nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4) was synthesized by sol-gel method under acidic conditions and then couple with existing semi-conductor, titanium oxide to form the photocatalyst nickel ferrite coupled titanium oxide (NiFe2O4/TiO2). This is done with the aim of coupling a synthesized low band gap semiconductor, nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4), with titanium oxide (TiO2), which will be able to convert the higher band gap semiconductor to making a visible light driven catalyst. A stoichiometric amount of nickel nitrate (Ni(NO3)2.6(H2O)) and iron nitrate (Fe(NO3)3.9(H2O)) were used as the reactant to make nickel ferrite. Once nickel ferrite has been synthesised, was then coupled with titanium oxide to form nickel ferrite coupled titanium oxide.
The wavelength of light required to activate the catalyst was determined using ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis). The efficiency of the catalyst were measured using gas chromatography (GC) with DB-WAX was the column. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used for phase identification.