Synthesis and Characterization of Au@TiO2 NWs and their Catalytic Activity by Water Splitting: A Comparative Study with Degussa P25
- 1 Universidad del Turabo, United States
- 2 Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Abstract
Different amount of gold nanoparticles (1, 3, 5, 10 wt%) were deposited on the surface of synthesized titanium oxide nanowires (TiO2 NWs) and Degussa P25 (TiO2-P25). The results evidenced the presence of small and dispersed gold particles on the surface of TiO2 NWs and TiO2-P25 and an increase in the specific surface area of all the composites. The photocatalytic activity was characterized by measuring the hydrogen production by water splitting, using UV-vis radiation. Au@TiO2 NWs catalysts showed the highest production of hydrogen (1,436 μmol hg-1), with a gold loading of 10 wt%, while in the case of Au@TiO2-P25 the hydrogen production was slightly lower (800 μmol hg-1), with a gold loading of 5 wt%. The enhancement in the hydrogen production was 11.5 times higher than that reported by the TiO2 NWs catalyst (125 µmol hg-1) and 5.2 times higher than the TiO2-P25 (154 µmol hg-1). The activity of the catalysts was found to be dependent both on the surface area of the composites and on the amount of gold.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajeassp.2017.298.311
Copyright: © 2017 Abniel Machín, María Cotto, José Ducongé, Juan C. Arango, Carmen Morant and Francisco Márquez. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Hydrogen Production
- TiO2 Nanowires
- Gold Nanoparticles
- Photocatalysis
- Water Splitting