Hydrogen production from water by tuning the photonic band gap with the electronic band gap of a photoactive material

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9744523-B2
Application number	US-201414502724-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2014
Priority date	Oct 2, 2013
Publication date	Aug 29, 2017
Grant date	Aug 29, 2017

Abstract

Disclosed is a photocatalyst, and methods for its use, that includes a photoactive material comprising a photonic band gap and an electronic band gap, wherein the photonic band gap at least partially overlaps with the electronic band gap, and an electrically conductive material deposited on the photoactive material.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A photocatalyst comprising:
a photoactive material comprising a photonic band gap and an electronic band gap,
wherein the photonic band gap at least partially overlaps with the electronic band gap; and
an electrically conductive material deposited on the photoactive material;
wherein the photoactive material has an inverse opal structure;
wherein the photocatalyst is in particulate form; wherein the photoactive material comprises titanium dioxide; wherein the titanium dioxide comprises a mixture of anatase and rutile; and wherein the photocatalyst is self-supported.

2. The photocatalyst of claim 1 , wherein the titanium dioxide comprises at least 80 wt. % of anatase.

3. The photocatalyst of claim 2 , wherein the titanium dioxide comprises about 82.8 wt. % to 90.2 wt. % anatase and 17.2 wt. % to 9.8 wt. % rutile.

4. The photocatalyst of claim 2 , wherein the photonic band gap ranges from 350 nm to 420 nm and the electronic band gap ranges from 360 to 430 nm.

5. The photocatalyst of claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive material comprises a metal.

6. The photocatalyst of claim 5 , wherein the metal is gold, ruthenium, rhenium, rhodium, palladium, silver, osmium, iridium, platinum, or combinations thereof.

7. The photocatalyst of claim 6 , wherein the metal is gold or palladium or a combination thereof.

8. The photocatalyst of claim 7 , wherein the palladium is deposited on the photoactive material and on the gold.

9. The photocatalyst of claim 1 , wherein the particulate is a powdered form.

10. The photocatalyst of claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive material is a plurality of nanostructures such as nanoparticles.

11. The photocatalyst of claim 10 , wherein the average particle size of the nanoparticles is from 1 to 10 nanometers.

12. The photocatalyst of claim 1 , comprising 0.001 to 5 wt. % of the electrically conductive material.

13. The photocatalyst of claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive material covers between 0.001% to 5% of the total surface area of the photoactive material.

14. The photocatalyst of claim 1 , wherein the photocatalyst is comprised in a composition that includes water.

15. The photocatalyst of claim 14 , wherein the composition further comprises a sacrificial agent.

16. The photocatalyst of claim 15 , wherein the sacrificial agent is methanol, ethanol, propanol, iso-propanol, n-butanol, iso-butanol, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, glycerol, or oxalic acid, or any combination thereof.

17. The photocatalyst of claim 16 , wherein the sacrificial agent is ethanol or ethylene glycol.

18. The photocatalyst of claim 14 , wherein the composition comprises 0.1 to 5 g/L of the photocatalyst and/or 0.1 to 5 vol. % of the sacrificial agent.

19. The photocatalyst of claim 1 , wherein the photocatalyst is capable of catalyzing the photocatalytic electrolysis of water.

20. The photocatalyst of claim 19 , wherein the H 2 production rate from water is 1×10 −3 to 1×10 −7 mol/g Catal min.

Assignees

• Sabic Global Technologies Bv

Inventors

• Idriss Hicham
• Wahab Ahmed Khaja
• Al-Oufi Maher
• Waterhouse Geoff

Classifications

• Y02E60/36

  Hydrogen production from non-carbon containing sources, e.g. by water electrolysis · CPC title

• B01J2235/15

  X-ray diffraction · CPC title

• B01J2235/00

  Indexing scheme associated with group B01J35/00, related to the analysis techniques used to determine the catalysts form or properties · CPC title

• B01J2235/30

  Scanning electron microscopy; Transmission electron microscopy · CPC title

• B01J35/45

  Nanoparticles · CPC title