Enhancement of calcium copper titanium oxide photoelectrochemical performance using boron nitride nanosheets
International audience; Photoelectrochemical water splitting under visible light has attracted attention for renewable hydrogen production. Despite prevalent investigations, many challenges still hindered an efficient energy conversion, such as enhancing the reaction efficiency in visible light. Thus controlling the photoelectrode materials is an essential step in designing new materials for water splitting. CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) has received great attention as photocatalyst under solar light due to its combined band gap as result of the presence in its structure of TiO2 active in UV light and CuO active under visible light. In this work, a cubic CCTO with different amount of exfoliated hexago…
Surface investigation of plasma HMDSO membranes post-treated by CF4/Ar plasma
Fluorination treatment has been performed on polysiloxane membranes using a plasma glow discharge of a gases mixture CF4 and argon (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition). Atomic force microscopy, XPS analyses and contact angle measurements have been undertaken to explain the surface transformation and behavior, which strongly depend on the morphology, the composition and the hydrophilic/hydrophobic character of the plasma-polymerized initial membranes. Main result is that fluorination, which leads to hydrophobic membranes, has a more relevant effect on amorphous silica-like membranes than on polymer-like ones, according to their chemical composition whereas the plasma surface reaction …
Highly textured boron/nitrogen co-doped TiO2 with honeycomb structure showing enhanced visible-light photoelectrocatalytic activity
International audience; In this work, we report a novel photocatalyst based on boron and nitrogen co-doped TiO2 rutile (1 1 0) honeycomb structures. The photocatalyst has been prepared by simultaneously oxidizing and doping a Ti-foil substrate at 750 degrees C. The unit cell volume and the crystallite size of grown TiO2 films were measured by Rietveld refinement analysis. The co-doping by boron and nitrogen was achieved simultaneously with the oxidation of the titanium, resulting in a rutile (1 1 0) textured TiO2 film. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis revealed the presence of Ti-O-N and Ti-O-B-N bonds, and the presence of crystal defects in the lattice was detected and displayed by…
Segregation of copper oxide on calcium copper titanate surface induced by Graphene Oxide for Water splitting applications
Abstract Photoelectrochemical cells (PEC) are promising devices for hydrogen production via sunlight energy. One of the important challenges in this area is to design photoactive electrodes able to absorb visible light. A good photoelectrochemical behavior depends on the presence of surface active sites to photogenerate current at the lower possible potential for water splitting. Recent investigations in this field are focusing on perovskite materials such as CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) as visible light active electrode due its outstanding structure in which CCTO encloses in its structure a visible light absorbance component (CuO). The presence CuO on the material surface is mainly responsible for t…
Mesoporous ZnFe2O4@TiO2 Nanofibers Prepared by Electrospinning Coupled to PECVD as Highly Performing Photocatalytic Materials
International audience; Zinc ferrite @ titanium dioxide (ZnFe2O4@TiO2) composite nanofibers were elaborated by combining the two different techniques: electrospinning and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The nanofiber compositions were controlled using different ratios of zinc to iron. Their structural, morphological, and optical properties were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, BET surface area, Raman spectroscopy, and UV–visible spectrophotometry. The photocatalytic activity has been investigated by the degradation of methylene blue under visible light. The results indicate that the combination of spinel st…
BN/GdxTi(1-x)O(4-x)/2 nanofibers for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production under visible light
Abstract BN/GdxTi(1-x)O(4-x)/2 nanofibers were elaborated via electrospinning technique. The properties of the prepared nanofibers were controlled using different ratios of gadolinium. All the prepared nanofibers exhibit the tetragonal structure of anatase TiO2 phase. An increase in the unit cell volume and a decrease in the crystallite size were observed with increasing the doping amount of Gd3+ as revealed by Rietveld refinement analysis. The defect in TiO2 lattice was observed by Raman. The Gd3+ incorporation inside TiO2 lattice, which is accompanied by the creation of Ti-O-Gd bond, was characterized by the X-ray photoelectron spectra. Scanning electron microscopy demonstrates that the a…