Hydrogen production from methanol/water decomposition in a liquid photosystem using the anatase structure of Cu loaded TiO_2

摘要

This study investigated the production of hydrogen over Cu (1, 5, 10 and 15 mol%)/TiO_2 photocatalysts loaded with CuO, prepared by an impregnation method. The CuO (002 and 1 1 1 plane) peaks at 2θ = 35.50° and 38.73° appeared with above 5 mol% loaded TiO_2. The CuO component (Cu2p_(3/2)) at 933.5-934eV was shown in the XPS band of the Cu/TiO_2 photocatalysts, which increased in size with increasing amount of loaded Cu. All of Ti2p_(3/2) bands for Cu/TiO_2 appeared at 458.8eV, which were assigned to Ti~(4+), most likely due to pure TiO_2. The measured full widths at half maximum (FWHM) of the Ti2p peaks for Cu/TiO_2 were larger compared to that of pure TiO_2; a larger FWHM implies a greater amount of less-oxidized metals. The ratios of metal-OH/metal-O in the Ols bands, which imply hydrophilicity, were increased in the Cu/TiO_2 compared to pure TiO_2. The production of H_2 from methanol/water photodecomposition was greater over the Cu/TiO_2 photocatalysts than over the pure TiO_2; the production reached 13,500 μmol after 10 h over 10 mol% Cu/TiO_2.