Influence of doped silver nanoparticles on the photocatalytic performance of ZnMn2O4 in the production of methanol from CO2 photocatalytic reduction

Abstract

The creation of sustainable energy via the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 has been emerged as an eco-friendly track to create sustainable energy. In this work, we have prepared ZnMn2O4 nanoparticles that more reactive to the irradiation using visible light via silver doping. The ZnMn2O4 and Ag/ZnMn2O4 samples were tested for the production of methanol from the reduction of carbon dioxide. The surface texture and visible light absorption of ZnMn2O4 photocatalysts were improved via silver doping of the ZnMn2O4 sample. The band gap of ZnMn2O4 samples was reduced from 2.12 to 1.71 eV via silver doping of the ZnMn2O4 sample with 4.0 wt% of silver. The 3.0 Ag/ZnMn2O4 sample has 1100 μmol/g production of methanol within 9 h and 2.5 g/L dose of the photocatalyst. The high performance of Ag/ZnMn2O4 photocatalyst is due to the presence of silver, which retard e–h recombination rate and reduced band gap energy of ZnMn2O4 sample.