Institute of Energy Technologies

Photocatalytic generation of hydrogen

The photoproduction of hydrogen takes place under mild conditions and represents one of the most desired routes to obtain renewable hydrogen towards a more sustainable world. However, the hydrogen photoproduction rates reported so far are too low for practical application and a strong effort is being pursued actively to develop more efficient photocatalysts and photocatalytic structures. Obviously, no matter how good a photocatalyst is, if a proper mass and photon transfer to the photocatalyst is not attained, the overall hydrogen yield will be strongly limited. Therefore, both the photocatalyst and the photoreactor are equally important to guarantee a suitable operation. We prepare TiO2-based materials doped with metal nanoparticles/complexes/inorganic oxides and TiO2 photonic crystals and test them in novel photoreactor designs, including optical fibers, microreactors and solar concentrators.

 

Some relevant publications:

Serafin, J., Soler, L., Vega, D., Rodríguez, A., Llorca, J. Macroporous silicon coated with M/TiO2 (M=Au,Pt) as a highly efficient photoreactor for hydrogen production. Chemical Engineering Journal, 2020, 393, 124701.

Dessal, C., Martínez, L., Maheu, C., Len, T., Morfin, F., Rousset, J.L., Puzenat, E., Afanasiev, P., Aouine, M., Soler, L., Llorca, J., Piccolo, L. Influence of Pt particle size and reaction phase on the photocatalytic performances of ultradispersed Pt/TiO2 catalysts for hydrogen evolution. Journal of catalysis, 2019, 375, 155-163.

Xing, C., Liu, Y., Zhang, Y., Liu, J., Zhang, T., Tang, P., Arbiol, J., Soler, L., Sivula, K., Guijarro, N., Wang, X., Li, J., Du, R., Zuo, Y., Cabot, A., Llorca, J. Porous NiTiO3/TiO2 nanostructures for photocatatalytic hydrogen evolution. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2019, 7, 17053-17059.

Castedo, A., Casanovas, A., Angurell, I., Soler, L., Llorca, J. Effect of temperature on the gas-phase photocatalytic H2 generation using microreactors under UVA and sunlight irradiation. Fuel, 2018, 222, 327-333.

Murdoch, M. Waterhouse, G.I.N., Nadeem, M.A., Metson, J.B., Keane, M.A., Howe, R.F., Llorca, J., Idriss, H. The effect of gold loading and particle size on photocatalytic hydrogen production from ethanol over Au/TiO2 nanoparticles. Nature Chemistry, 2011, 3, 489-492.