TY - JOUR T1 - Electronically integrated mesoporous Ag-TiO2 nanocomposite thin films for efficient solar hydrogen production in direct sunlight JF - Energy Technology Y1 - 2021 A1 - Mani, Sunesh S. A1 - Rajendran, Sivaraj A1 - Nalajala, Naresh A1 - Mathew, Thomas A1 - Gopinath, Chinnakonda S. KW - heterogeneous catalysis KW - heterojunctions KW - plasmon effect KW - Silver KW - solar energy conversion KW - Solar hydrogen AB -

The synthesis of mesoporous TiO2 by a solution-based assembly process and Ag/TiO2 nanocomposites is provided. The efficacy of Ag/TiO2 nanocomposite as photocatalyst in thin-film form is demonstrated for solar hydrogen generation in sunlight. Integration of Ag with TiO2 dramatically enhanced the H-2 production: with 1 wt% Ag on TiO2 (TiAg-1), the H-2 yield was observed to be 4.59 mmol h(-1) g(-1), which is 2.3 (30) times larger than 0.5 wt% Ag on TiO2. TiAg-1 shows 4.3 times higher activity in film form compared with its powder counterpart. High photocatalytic efficiency is attributed to the surface plasmon resonance effect of Ag, electronic integration of Ag with TiO2, and subsequent valence band broadening, large distribution of Ag nanoparticles and abundant Ag-TiO2 Schottky junctions, and the later minimizes electron-hole recombination. Interparticle mesoporous network increases necking and the high surface area offers easy accessibility of the reactants to a large number of active sites.

VL - 10 IS - 1 U3 -

Foreign

U4 -

4.149

ER -