Photocatalyst for Solar Generation of Hydrogen via Cu/Ti02 Catalyst

Photocatalyst process has drawn the attention of many researches at present time as it has
tremendous potential in near future. To be more specific, semiconductor mediated
photocatalysis has been a subject of vigorous academic research for the past 30 years as
its application towards the environmental sector is crucial. As far as this project is
concern, the main aim is to produce hydrogen via Photocatalysis using visible light with
the aid of suitably supported semiconductor in a water-glycerol system. Cu is
incorporated onto titanium dioxide (Ti02) for the reduction of water (H20) in the
presence of sacrificial agents. CuO component which dominates in the anatase phase of
Cu/Ti02, acts as the water reduction site which promotes charge separation. The catalyst
is prepared using wet impregnation method and studies were conducted on the effect of
various amounts of CuO content and calcinations temperature with respect to hydrogen
production. Apart from that, several techniques are used to characterize the properties of
the prepared catalyst which includes TPR, SEM, XRD and TGA. Since the oxidation of
water by holes is a slow process, hole scavengers or sacrificial agents are introduced to
expedite the process. The sacrificial agents reacts irreversibly with the photogenerated
holes suppressing the recombination of photogenerated electrons and holes on the
semiconductor surface leading to higher photocatalytic H20 reduction to H2•
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