Use of Pt/N-doped mesoporous-assembled nanocrystalline TiO2 for photocatalytic H2 production under visible light irradiation

In this work, nanocrystalline mesoporous-assembled TiO2 photocatalyst was initially synthesized by a sol-gel process with the aid of structure-directing surfactant, N-doped by calcining with urea at a urea:- TiO2 molar ratio of 1:1, and then loaded with various Pt contents via the incipient wetness impregnation method for photocatalytic H-2 production from water splitting using methanol as a sacrificial electron donor under visible light irradiation, The prepared photocatalysts were systematically characterized by N-2 adsorption-desorption analysis, XRD, TEM, and XPS. It was observed that the impregnation of Pt onto the N-doped nanocrystalline mesoporous-assem bled TiO2 considerably improved its photocatalytic H-2 production activity with the optimum Pt loading content of 1.3 wt% The experimental results clearly revealed that the Pt dispersion on the photocatalyst surface played a significant role in enhancing the photocatalytic activity. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.