The development of alternative energy sources to fossil fuels becomes more and more important. Photocatalytic water splitting into molecular hydrogen and oxygen employing solar energy is considered as one of the most promising technologies to generate clean and carbon dioxide free energy. However, the photocatalytic activity in general depends on many factors, e.g., on surface area, crystallinity, phase composition, bandgap energy, conduction band level and many other properties of the photocatalyst. Thus, in the present work the effect of different cocatalysts, i.e., Pt, Rh, NiO, CuO, CoO, and RuO2, concerning the photocatalytic activity of La-doped NaTaO3 photocatalysts towards the water splitting reaction under UV-Vis irradiation was investigated. The photocatalytic reactions were studied in pure water as well as in the presence of sacrificial reagents, i.e., methanol and silver nitrate. The results revealed that in pure water only H2 is evolved with the highest rate being achieved on RuO2 loaded photocatalysts (7 �mol/h), while in the presence of methanol, Pt and Rh loaded photocatalysts exhibit the highest activities for H2 evolution (ca. 100 �mol/h). On the contrary, CoO loaded photocatalysts show the highest rate of O2evolution from aqueous silver nitrate solutions (12 �mol/h). The effect of noble metal and metal oxide cocatalysts on the hydrogen and oxygen evolution activities is supposed to depend on their ability to trap the photogenerated charge carriers.

La-doped NaTaO<sub>3</sub> particles: Effect of different cocatalysts on photocatalytic hydrogen and oxygen evolution activities

245th National Meeting (2013)

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La-doped NaTaO3 particles: Effect of different cocatalysts on photocatalytic hydrogen and oxygen evolution activities

La-doped NaTaO₃ particles: Effect of different cocatalysts on photocatalytic hydrogen and oxygen evolution activities