Photocatalytic hydrogen generation from raw water using zeolite/polyaniline@Ni2O3 nanocomposite as a novel photo-electrode

Abstract

Novel heulandite/polyanailine@Ni2O3 composite (Hu/PAN@NiO) was fabricated as an advanced product of enhanced photocatalytic properties and low band gap energy for efficient hydrogen generation. The composite was characterized and identified through different techniques including XRD, HRTEM, SEM, and FTIR in addition to the investigation of its textural and optical properties. The fabricated composite is of a significantly high surface area (531 m2/g) and low band gap that reaches about 1.46 eV which strongly qualifies the product electrode in photo-electrochemical hydrogen generation processes. The synthetic composite exhibits effective photocatalytic performance in the photoelectrochemical splitting of water under a visible light source. The detected photocurrent density reached 4.7204 mAcm−2 and the hydrogen production rate was estimated to be 4.1 μmol/h−1cm−2 after about 50 min at an applied voltage of +1V. The obtained results reflected the potentiality of such hybrid material as an effective catalyst in the photo-electrochemical splitting of water for hydrogen production.