Visible light photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen production from N-TiO 2 rice grain shaped electrospun nanostructures

Abstract

We report on the visible light-driven hydrogen production from splitting of water molecules by nitrogen-doped TiO 2 (N-TiO 2) with a rice grain-like nanostructure morphology. The N-TiO 2 nanostructures are prepared using sol-gel and electrospinning methods followed by post-annealing of the composite nanofibers. The nanostructures are characterized by microscopy and spectroscopy. First order rate constants for the visible light-assisted photocatalysis in the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye are found to be 0.2 × 10 -3 and 1.8 × 10 -3 min -1 for TiO 2 and N-TiO 2 (5 wt% of nitrogen), respectively. The N-TiO 2 utilized in water splitting experiments and evaluated hydrogen (H 2) of 28 and 2 μmol/h for N-TiO 2 and TiO 2, respectively. The improvement may be attributed due to the N-doping and higher surface area as ∼70 m 2/g. © 2012, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.