화학공학소재연구정보센터
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Vol.43, No.11, 5551-5560, 2018
Design of cocatalyst loading position for photocatalytic water splitting into hydrogen in electrolyte solutions
Photocatalytic water splitting into hydrogen is a very attractive and desirable technology to realize sustainable and renewable green energy conversion. Up to now, many research results have confirmed that cocatalyst such as Pt is essential for a high efficiency photo catalytic H-2 evolution system. In a traditional view, the cocatalyst should be closely combined with the photocatalyst to achieve a high H-2 or O-2 photo-productive rate. In this work, an unusual point has been put forward that the suitable loading position of cocatalyst Pt for film-type TiO2 catalyst is on the bare Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate instead of on the surface of TiO2 in the electrolyte solutions. Especially, in acidic electrolyte, the hydrogen production rate of this new designed catalyst with Pt loaded on FTO (TiO2-Pt/FTO) reaches 2.4 times that of the common catalyst with Pt loaded on TiO2 (Pt/TiO2-FTO). According to the experiment results, it is supposed that this loading way of cocatalyst on the substrate can construct a self-bias photocatalytic electrochemical cell system, drive electrolyte ions' movement directionally, and obtain high photocatalytic H-2 production efficiency. The universality of this innovation has been verified by CdS and CdS@TiO2 film-type catalysts. This study provides a new guide in exploring high-efficiency film-type photocatalytic system for water splitting into hydrogen in the electrolyte solution. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.