Photocatalytic H2 production over inverse opal TiO2 catalysts

Abstract

The influence of BiVO 4 and CuO on the chemico-physical properties of TiO 2-based systems is reported. The performances of these systems were investigated in the photocatalytic H 2 production both under UV and solar light irradiation. The characterization data pointed out that the obtained TiO 2 samples have highly porous inverse opal structures with interconnected macropores. Inverse opal TiO 2 exhibited higher activity in the H 2 production than the commercial TiO 2 due to the peculiar porosity that allows photons to enter inside the photocatalyst. A further improvement in terms of photoactivity was verified by addition of increasing amounts of BiVO 4. On the contrary a small CuO content was found to be the optimal one for the inverse opal TiO 2-CuO composites. In fact, due to surface segregation effects, a higher amount of CuO can partially keep the light radiation away from the TiO 2 surface active sites, thus decreasing drastically the absorption of photons. The combination of the benefits of the highly ordered porous TiO 2 structure and the presence of BiVO 4 or small amounts of CuO can represent a promising strategy towards efficient photocatalytic H 2 production.

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