Dye-sensitized semiconductor photocatalysts have undergone extensive research to examine their activities under visible light irradiation. Ruthenium-based dyes in particular show greater potential due to their extreme stability and reproducibility for solar cells as well as water splitting applications. In this study, two different Ru-bipyridyl dyes containing di-carboxylate (C2) and di-phosphonate (P2) anchoring groups were synthesized and used as sensitizers on titania-loaded SBA-15 (Ti-SBA-15) materials for water splitting. C2 and P2 show adsorption abilities of 66 µmol/g and 152 µmol/g, respectively, over the mesoporous Ti-SBA-15 material and exhibit good stability under visible light irradiation. During water splitting, the close proximity of the dye molecules with the semiconductor materials plays a major role in the efficiency of the hydrogen evolution; however, the binding affinity varies depending on the choice of anchoring group. In this experiment, we studied the effect of sensitization of the Ti-SBA-15 on the hydrogen evolution and the enhancement of the H<sub>2</sub> production after platinization of the dye-sensitized materials. P2 was found to adsorb more strongly to Ti-SBA-15 than C2, while C2 responded more efficiently to the platinization. The effect of adsorption of these P2 and C2 dyes over aperiodic mesoporous titania-silica materials is currently being studied.

Ru-bipyridyl dye sensitized titania loaded SBA-15 mesoporous materials for visible light induced photocatalytic splitting of water

249th National Meeting (2015)

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