Immobilization of Iron Minerals on a Layered Silicate for Enhancing its Solar Photocatalytic Activity toward H2 Production

Hamza El-Hosainy,Yusuke Ide,Maged El-Kemary,Mohamed Esmat,Rafat Tahawy

doi:10.3389/fenrg.2021.630535

Hamza El-Hosainy, Yusuke Ide + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2021.630535

Copy DOI

Abstract

The development of efficient and cost-effective solar photocatalysts capable of producing hydrogen from formic acid as a hydrogen storage medium is still a challenging issue. Herein, we report that iron minerals, ferric iron hydroxy sulfates (FHS), immobilized on a natural layered silicate, magadiite, can be used as a photocatalyst to produce hydrogen from formic acid under irradiation with solar simulator. The material exhibits the hydrogen production rate of 470 μmol g−1 h−1, which is considerably higher than that obtained on other iron minerals and comparable to that obtained on precious metal-based photocatalyst ever reported. The present result may open a way to design efficient photocatalyst for hydrogen production from formic acid in an economically and environmentally friendly way.

Highlights

Numerous endeavors have been done to develop new strategies that can store and provide hydrogen, an alternative energy source to non-renewable resources including fossil fuels, at acceptable costs (Loges et al, 2010; Grasemann and Laurenczy, 2012; Yadav and Xu, 2012; Li and Xu, 2013; Singh and Xu, 2013)
We report that ferric iron hydroxy sulfate (FHS) minerals, hydronium jarosite and volaschioite (Umetsu et al, 1977; Biagioni et al, 2011; Najorka et al, 2016), supported on a natural silicate can be used as a solar photocatalyst for formic acid (FA) hydrogenation
The position and intensity of the peak due to the basal spacing for ferric iron hydroxy sulfates (FHS)/H-mag observed at around 2θ of 7.5° was not significantly different from that of H-mag. These results suggest the formation of FHS phases mainly outside H-mag particles

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Numerous endeavors have been done to develop new strategies that can store and provide hydrogen, an alternative energy source to non-renewable resources including fossil fuels, at acceptable costs (Loges et al, 2010; Grasemann and Laurenczy, 2012; Yadav and Xu, 2012; Li and Xu, 2013; Singh and Xu, 2013). Photocatalytic FA hydrogenation has been considered to offer an alternative because the reaction can be done at room temperature using solar energy, available in an unlimited supply Solids photocatalysts such as TiO2 and CdS have been used for the reaction after the modification with precious metals such as Ru, Pd, Au, and Pt (Matsumura et al, 1984; Zhang et al, 2010; Li et al, 2011; Cai et al, 2013; Zhang Z et al, 2015). Oxidative decomposition and dehydrogenation of FA was performed under O2 and Ar atmospheres, respectively, in a Pyrex glass tube (34 mL) as follows: the powder sample (15 mg) was added into an aqueous solution (5 mL) containing formic acid (5 vol%) and bubbled with O2 or Ar for 30 min. AQY (%) was defined as [number of H2 evolved] × 2/[number of incident photons] × 100

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT