(744b) TiO2 Nanoparticles By Flame Synthesis for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution | AIChE

(744b) TiO2 Nanoparticles By Flame Synthesis for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Authors 

Xu, R. - Presenter, Nanyang Technological University
Wu, S., C4T, National Research Foundation
Kraft, M., Uiv of Cambridge
Energy shortage and environment deterioration have been increasingly urgent and severe over the past decades. The limited non-renewable fossil fuels can hardly meet the growing energy demand. Thus, the exploitation of new green energy resources has become a global concern in recent years. Sunlight and water are abundant natural resources, which can be utilized to produce renewable energy in the form of hydrogen through water splitting. Thus, our work has been focused on this promising area. Despite the great progress achieved by now, the research in this field is still in an early age. The efficiencies of photocatalytic water splitting for the production of hydrogen are still relatively low and remain to be improved. Our flame-made TiO2 has many advantages over the traditional TiO2 which is prepared by wet chemistry. The small uniform particle size (~15nm) and the large specific surface area (~150 m2/g) make our TiO2 a good candidate for this reaction and it can improve the hydrogen generation rate largely. The simple procedure and stable mass production (~100mg/h) can largely save the cost of time and money, compared to the wet chemistry method. Besides, the excellent durability and environmental-friendly property can make our TiO2 nanoparticles as a promising substitution for the toxic heavy metal catalysts, like CdS, CdO, MoP. The highest hydrogen generation rate that we have achieved by now is 24178 μmol g-1h-1. So far, this performance has been proved to be better than most results in other works.