Hydrogen Evolution over New Heteronanostructured Photocatalysts Pt&#8210;Nb3O7(OH) and Cu&#8210;Nb3O7(OH)

Hydrogen Evolution over New Heteronanostructured Photocatalysts Pt‒Nb3O7(OH) and Cu‒Nb3O7(OH)

Mohamad Hmadeh^a^,^b, Geoffrey Ozin^b, Veronika Hoepfner ^b, Eduardo Larios^c, Miguel Jose-Yacaman^c

^aAmerican University of Beirut, Chemistry, Beirut, 11, Lebanon

^bUniversity of Toronto, Materials Chemistry Research Group, Department of Chemistry, Saint George Street, 80, Toronto, Canada

^cPhysics Department, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle,, San Antonio, United States

Proceedings of International Conference on New Advances in Materials Research for Solar Fuels Production (SolarFuel14)

Montréal, Canada, 2014 June 25th - 26th

Organizer: Thomas Hamann

Poster, Mohamad Hmadeh, 033
Publication date: 16th April 2014

Photocatalytic solar fuel production has attracted much attention since Fujishima and Honda’s work using the TiO2 photocatalyst as a photoanode. Following this initial discovery, numerous families of semiconductors (e.g. ZnO, ZrO2, CdS, ZnS, SiC) have been developed for solar fuel production. At present, the main obstacle in the development of photocatalytic materials is to increase their efficiency. Several strategies have been employed in the design of novel materials to enhance the photocatalytic activity. The utilization of multi-component nanostructures rather than single semiconductors is one of the most efficient and practical approaches in achieving these highly sought after characteristics. Although titania is the most commonly studied photocatalyst, a series of niobium based semiconductors (e.g. HNb3O8, HNbO3, H4Nb2O7, H4Nb6O17) have attracted much attention recently, due to their favorable properties such as high stability under light irradiation, chemical inertness, and non-toxicity. Furthermore, it is believed that the protonic acidity in these semiconductors can promote adsorption of water, and CO2. Herein, the synthesis and characterization of Nb3O7(OH) nanorods as well as their Pt- and CuO-decorated heteronanostructures is reported. The resulting Pt- and CuO-decorated Nb3O7(OH) nanorods demonstrated uniform particle dispersion and were fully characterized by X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, and spectroscopic analysis. Furthermore, the solar powered photocatalytic hydrogen production properties of these heteronanostructures were studied. The solar driven H2 formation rate over Pt‒Nb3O7(OH) was determined to be 710.4 ± 1.7 μmol g‒1 h‒1 with a quantum efficiency of f = 5.40 % at λ = 380 nm. Interestingly, the as-prepared CuO–Nb3O7(OH) heteronanostructure was found to be inactive under solar irradiation during an induction phase whereupon it undergoes an in situ photoreduction process to form the photocatalytically active Cu–Nb3O7(OH). This restructuring process was monitored by an in situ measurement of the time evolution of the optical absorption spectra. The solar powered H2 production for the restructured compound was determined to be 290.3 ± 5.1 μmol g‒1 h‒1.

nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.

MATSUS

Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.

Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics

The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.

International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics

The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.