High photocatalytic activity of hydrogen production from water over Fe doped and Ag deposited anatase TiO2 catalyst synthesized by solvothermal method

Abstract

Metallic Ag deposited and Fe3+ ions doped anatase TiO2 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by one-step solvothermal method with using tetrabutyl titanate as precursor and ethanol as solvent. All prepared TiO2 samples were single anatase phase through XRD and Raman spectroscopy analysis. Compared with pure TiO2, Fe doped and Ag deposited TiO2 showed higher visible light absorption activity and lower electron–hole pair recombination rate. In all TiO2 samples, 4.5% Fe–4.5% Ag/TiO2 displayed the highest absorption intensity of visible light and lowest recombination rate of electron–hole pairs, its absorption wavelength edge moved remarkably with a red shift to 610nm. Based on XPS and TEM analysis, Fe3+ located in the TiO2 lattice and metallic Ag particles deposited on the surface of it were detected, the particle sizes of Ag were about 2–3nm. Average maximum H2 production rate through water splitting was 515.45μmolh−1gcat-1 with using 4.5% Fe–4.5% Ag/TiO2 as catalyst (a measured time of 6h, visible light irradiation, λ>400nm). At last, the mechanism of H2 production by water splitting under visible light irradiation was also proposed.