Efficient Photocatalytic Reduction of CO2 Present in Seawater into Methanol over Cu/C-Co-Doped TiO2 Nanocatalyst Under UV and Natural Sunlight
2018
Kavil, Yasar N. | Shaban, Yasser A. | Al Farawati, Radwan Kh | Orif, Mohamed I. | Zobidi, Mousa | Khan, Shahed U. M.
Photocatalytic reduction of CO₂ in seawater into chemical fuel, methanol (CH₃OH), was achieved over Cu/C-co-doped TiO₂ nanoparticles under UV and natural sunlight. Photocatalysts with different Cu loadings (0, 0.5, 1, 3, 5, and 7 wt%) were synthesized by the sol–gel method and were characterized by XRD, SEM, UV–Vis, FTIR, and XPS. Co-doping with C and Cu into TiO₂ remarkably promoted the photocatalytic production of CH₃OH. This improvement was attributed to lowering of bandgap energy, specific catalytic effect of Cu for CH₃OH formation, and the minimization of photo-generated carrier recombination. Co-doped TiO₂ with 3.0 wt% Cu was found to be the most active catalyst, giving a maximum methanol yield rate of 577 μmol g-cat⁻¹ h⁻¹ under illumination of UV light, which is 5.3-fold higher than the production rate over C-TiO₂ and 7.4 times the amount produced using Degussa P25 TiO₂. Under natural sunlight, the maximum rate of the photocatalytic production of CH₃OH using 3.0 wt% Cu/C-TiO₂ was found to be 188 μmol g-cat⁻¹ h⁻¹, which is 2.24 times higher than that of C-TiO₂, whereas, no CH₃OH was observed for P25.
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