Photocatalytic hydrogen production from aqueous Na2SO3 + Na2S solution with B/CuO/ZnO under visible light irradiation

Abstract

Visible light photocatalytic H2 production was successfully achieved with B/CuO/ZnO in aqueous Na2S–Na2SO3 solution. ZnO and modified ZnOs were prepared by a simple mechanochemical technique followed by a combustion process. B-doped ZnO showed the better H2 productivity compared with the materials doped with C, N, F, B/N, and B/F. Since it was found that in situ formed CuS particle interaction with B–ZnO was 1.4 times more effective for increasing the H2 generation, the composite B/CuO/ZnO was fabricated for the photocatalytic hydrogen production. It demonstrated the highest hydrogen production with 224 μmol g−1 h−1 and 933 μmol g−1 h−1 under xenon lamp irradiation with and without the cut filter (>400 nm), respectively. Prepared materials were characterized using various techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy.