Composites of π-stacking materials with low-dimensional metal oxide nanoblends for photocatalytic hydrogen production

Abstract

Nanoblends of conjugated materials doped with low-dimensional metal oxides employing a scalable manufacturing process are discussed. The morphology, crystal structure and photocatalytic property of the nanoblends comprising of π-stacking materials namely polyaniline (PANI), polythiophene (PTh), graphene oxide (GO) doped with metal oxide Fe–TiO2 to form Fe–TiO2/PANI, Fe–TiO2/GO and Fe–TiO2/PTh nanostructures were studied in detail. The process includes wet chemical synthesis of the inorganic counterparts followed by mash blending technique to procure the low-dimensional nanoblends. The optical absorption characteristics of the above samples were studied by UV spectra. Furthermore, the samples are characterized by XRD, FTIR, SEM-EDAX and TEM analysis. The obtained nanoblends were utilized as photocatalyst for hydrogen production and a rational comparison was made with the procured Fe–TiO2 nanoblends. The assessment of the photocatalyst was also carried out. Among the prepared nanoblends, Fe–TiO2/PTh has good photocatalytic activity and shows maximum efficiency of 15.83% towards photocatalytic hydrogen production which can be ascribed to increased surface area as a result of texturing attributes. The long-term stability of the photocatalyst was confirmed by the catalytic stability tests.