Photocatalytic H₂ Evolution under Visible-Light Irradiation on Modified TiO₂ Catalysts

Abstract

This TiO 2 catalyst is modified by two means of doping and dye-sensitization to decompose the water into hydrogen under visible light irradiation in this paper. By exploring the mechanisms of the modification with two ways, it is found that the modification can make TiO 2 semiconductor with only UV photocatalytic activity become a catalyst with the visible-light activity. The experiments demonstrate that quantum efficiency and energy conversion efficiency of the doped catalyst is respectively 1.5% and 0.5%, and that of the sensitized catalyst is respectively 2.13% and 0.89%. By comparison the doped TiO 2 catalysts have better prospect in the application because of the instability of the sensitized catalyst.