Metal-doped polymeric photocatalysts for solar fuels production

• Main Author: Ruan, Liyan
• Other Authors: Xue Can
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Engineering::Materials::Microelectronics and semiconductor materials
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/166822
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The world's demand for energy is increasing, while the use of fossil fuels continues to contribute to environmental degradation and climate change. Increasing environmental awareness has led to the development of sustainable and renewable energy sources.Solar fuel including hydrogen and methane produced from chemical reactions driven by sunlight under photocatalystsis considered to be a solution.Photocatalysts based ongraphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4, or gCN) hasattracted intensive attention. Metallic dopantsarebelieved to be an efficient solution for short Carriers' lifetime and low sunlight absorptionin pure gCN (pCN). However, thereare not enough research to explore effects of metal doping in gCN.Therefore, this research focus on effects of doped transition metal elementsand their proportionon graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4)-based photocatalysts.In conclusion, transition metal elements tested except Cu are potential for water splitting reactions. Ni doped gCN made from NiCl2shows the best photocatalytic property,whose hydrogen production rate is 2.6 times as high as pure gCN sample’s.This result shows a practical prospectof Ni-doped gCN in photocatalytic fuel production.