Synthesis of Ni/GO-TiO2 composites for the photocatalytic hydrogen production and CO2 reduction to methanol Article uri icon

abstract

  • In recent years, different materials have been studied for the hydrogen generation using photocatalytic processes. The formation of graphene oxide-titanium dioxide (GO-TiO2) composites has been reported for different photocatalytic applications since GO may contribute with different desirable properties such as the reduction of the recombination occurred on the metal oxide by the high mobility of charge carriers on the GO surface. In the present work we report the synthesis and application of GO-TiO2 composites and their superficial modification with nickel nanoparticles for two different photocatalytic applications: hydrogen evolution using methanol-water solutions and also for the CO2 reduction to methanol. The GO-TiO2 composites were prepared for the contents of 1, 3 and 5 wt%25 of GO on TiO2. The GO-TiO2 composites were then superficially modified by Ni nanoparticles at 0.5 wt%25. The materials were evaluated under UV light using a pen-ray lamp of 254 nm with an intensity of 2.2 mW/cm2. The most active composite Ni/GO-TiO2 3 wt%25, increased the hydrogen production from 389 µmol/h·g up to 2171 µmol/h·g improving the activity of TiO2 in a factor of 5.6. Also, this composite Ni/GO-TiO2 3 wt%25 showed the highest photocatalytic activity for the CO2 photoreduction to generate up to 55 µmol/h·g of methanol. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science%2bBusiness Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

publication date

  • 2022-01-01