Hydrogen production by photocatalytic alcohol reforming employing highly efficient nanocrystalline titania films

Hydrogen production by photocatalytic alcohol reforming has been studied in the presence of a Pt/TiO2 photocatalyst. Nanocrystalline titania was deposited on glass slides by using a sol-gel process in the presence of surfactant template. Band-gap excitation of titania was made by using a low-energy Black-Light source. Water-ethanol mixtures proved the most efficient substrate for hydrogen production. This system demonstrated an impressive efficiency, which reached up to 74% active electron to incident photon ratio and 32% energy conversion efficiency. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.