Promotion of photocatalytic steam reforming of methane over Ag^0/Ag^+-SrTiO3

摘要

Methane(CH4)is not only used as a fuel but also as a promising clean energy source for hydrogen generation.The steam reforming of CH4(SRM)using photocatalysts can realize the production of syngas(CO+H2)with low energy consumption.In this work,Ag0/Ag+-loaded SrTi03 nanocomposites were successfully prepared through a photodeposition method.When the loading amount of Ag is 0.5 mol%,the atom ratio of Ag+to Ag0 was found to be 51:49.In this case,a synergistic effect of Ago and Ag+was observed,in which Ago was proposed to improve the adsorption of H2 O to produce hydroxyl radicals and enhance the utilization of light energy as well as the separation of charge carriers.Meanwhile,Ag0 was regarded as the reduction reaction site with the function of an electron trapping agent.In addition,Ag+adsorbed the CH4 molecules and acted as the oxidation reaction sites in the process of photocatalytic SRM to further promote electron-hole separation.As a result,0.5 mol%Ag-SrTi03 exhibited enhancement of photocatalytic activity for SRM with the highest CO production rate of 4.3μmol g-1 h-1,which is ca.5 times higher than that of pure SrTi03.This work provides a facile route to fabricate nanocomposite with cocatalyst featuring different functions in promoting photocatalytic activity for SRM.