Abstract
Since the complexity of photocatalyst synthesis process and high cost of noble cocatalyst leftovers a major hurdle to producing hydrogen (H2) from water, a noble metal-free Ni-Si/MgO photocatalyst was realized for the first time to generate H2 effectively under illumination with visible light. The catalyst was produced by means of simple one-pot solid reaction using self-designed metal reactor. The physiochemical properties of photocatalyst were identified by XRD, FESEM, HRTEM, EDX, UV-visible, XPS, GC and PL. The photocatalytic activities of Ni-Si/MgO photocatalyst at different nickel concentrations were evaluated without adjusting pH, applied voltage, sacrificial agent or electron donor. The ultrathin-nanosheet with hierarchically porous structure of catalyst was found to exhibit higher photocatalytic H2 production than hexagonal nanorods structured catalyst, which suggests that the randomly branched nanosheets are more active surface to increase the light-harvesting efficiency due to its short electron diffusion path. The catalyst exhibited remarkable performance reaching up to 714 µmolh−1 which is higher among the predominant semiconductor catalyst. The results demonstrated that the photocatalytic reaction irradiated under visible light illumination through the production of hydrogen and hydroxyl radicals on metals. The outcome indicates an important step forward one-pot facile approach to prepare noble ultrathin photocatalyst for hydrogen production from water.
Highlights
Why do we need to promote hydrogen energy? The scientist lays out about four main reasons-energy-saving, minimal ecological impacts, energy security and industrial competitiveness
Many noble metal-free cocatalysts have been focused capable of producing hydrogen from water without adjusting pH, applied voltage, sacrificial agent or electron donor, but the efficiency is low enough to equate with the reported state of art noble photocatalyst
The active metal components disperse highly onto support material which is directly related to the catalytic activity[37,38]
Summary
Why do we need to promote hydrogen energy? The scientist lays out about four main reasons-energy-saving, minimal ecological impacts, energy security and industrial competitiveness. Noble metals (Pt, Ru, Ge, Se) modified nanosheet photocatalysts were used extensively for efficient water splitting reactions. MgO supported Ni-Si photocatalyst was prepared by one-pot solid phase reduction process at 750 °C for 3 h to prepare nanosheet assembled porous structure (Fig. 1A,B).
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