Publication date: 31st March 2013
Titanium dioxide has been considered the most appropriate candidate for CO2 photoreduction due to its powerful photocatalytic properties, low cost and photocorrosion resistance. However, the use of TiO2 in photocatalysis under visible light is limited due to the high energy of the band gap (Eg) transition (3.2 eV for anatase crystalline phase). This limitation can be circumvented by using cadmium sulphide (CdS, Eg = 2.4 eV) as a sensitizer to TiO2. In order to improve the photocatalytic performance of this material, reduced graphene oxide (RGO) decorated with platinum nanoparticles can also be introduced in the system to give rise to a single composite material with promising photocatalytic activity. Thus, in this work we prepared CdS/TiO2/RGO/Pt composites for the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 by using visible light and water vapor only. Figure 1a shows the SEM images of the CdS/TiO2/RGO/Pt composite. In the composite images, it is possible to observe that CdS/TiO2 nanoparticles and RGO/Pt are completely dispersed in the system, which can improve the photocatalysis. Figure 1b shows the UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy of composite. The material exhibits a broad adsorption band from 200 to 500 nm, indicating an effective photoabsorption property for the photocatalytic system. In order to test the photoreduction of CO2 to hydrocarbons, approximately 300 mg of the composite material was deposited onto a glass, which was then placed inside a homemade photocatalytic reactor. The system was first evacuated to a base pressure of ca. 7 mbar to remove air and then dosed with 0.6 PSI of a mixture of CO2 and H2O. After five hours of reaction, 0.11 mmol of methane was produced at a rate of 0.0867 mmol /h, confirming the excellent photocatalytic performance of this nanocomposite when compared with the pure TiO2 and TiO2/CdS only.
Figure 1. (a) Scanning electron microscopy images and (b) UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy of TiO2/CdS/RGO/Pt nanocomposite.
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