Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to methane on Pt/TiO2 nanosheet porous film

Abstract

Anatase TiO2 nanosheet porous films were prepared by calcination of the orthorhombic titanic acid films at 400°C. They showed an excellent photocatalytic activity for CO2 photoreduction to methane, which should be related to their special porous structure and large Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area. In order to further improve the photocatalytic activity, Pt nanoparticles were loaded uniformly with the average size of 3-4 nm on TiO2 porous films by the photoreduction method. It was found that the loading of Pt expanded the light absorption ability of the porous film and improved the transformation efficiency of CO2 to methane. The conversion yield of CO2 to methane on Pt/TiO2 film reached 20.51 ppm/h·cm2. The Pt/TiO2 nanosheet porous film was characterized by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and ultraviolet-visible light diffuse reflectance spectra (UV-vis DRS). Moreover, the transient photocurrent-time curves showed that the Pt/TiO2 nanosheet porous film exhibited higher photocurrent, indicating that the higher separation efficiency of the photogenerated charge carriers was achieved. © 2014 Li Qiu-ye et al.