H_<b>2</b>Fuels from Photocatalytic Splitting of Seawater Affected by Nano-TiO_<b>2</b>Promoted with CuO and NiO

Abstract

To enhance H 2 yields from the photocatalytic splitting of seawater, better photocatalysts such as nanostructured TiO 2 promoted with NiO (2.5%) and CuO (2.5%) have been studied in the present work. The accumulated H 2 yielded from the photocatalytic splitting of seawater containing oxalic acid (50 mM) as the sacrificial reagents on CuO/nano-TiO 2 is 8.53 μ mol/g cat after the 5 h radiation. On the NiO/nano-TiO 2 photocatalyst, the H 2 yield is relatively low (i.e., 1.46 μ mol/g cat ). Note that the hole scavenging with chlorides in seawater may be associated with the less H 2 yielded from the seawater photocatalysis (on CuO/nano-TiO 2 ) if compared with that from water (42.4 μ mol/g cat ).