Visible light-driven photocatalytic hydrogen production using Cu2O/TiO2 composites prepared by facile mechanochemical synthesis

A visible light - driven photocatalytic hydrogen production system was evaluated for methanol as a sacrificial agent using a Cu2O/TiO2 composite material. A simple ball - milling method was proposed to prepare the Cu2O/ TiO2 photocatalyst, focusing on those factors influencing the photocatalytic system through a two-level 3-factorial design approach. The effect of the Cu2O loading and the operating conditions (milling time and rotation rate) for the preparation method were analysed. 1% wt. of Cu2O over TiO2 was identified as the best formulation for the composite catalyst, achieving a maximum hydrogen production of about 1 mmol/g after 5 h of irradiation. The quantum yield and the light to chemical conversion under visible light conditions for the best performing photocatalyst were 1.51% and 0.6%, respectively, which was about 1.5 - fold higher than that obtained in the presence of a simple mixture of the pure starting powders.

Automated summary

A visible light-driven photocatalytic hydrogen production system using a Cu2O/TiO2 composite material was evaluated. A simple ball-milling method was proposed for preparing the Cu2O/TiO2 photocatalyst, and the effects of Cu2O loading and operating conditions were analyzed. The results indicated that the optimized composite catalyst achieved high hydrogen production and light to chemical conversion under visible light conditions.