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Titanium Dioxide-Based Nanostructured Catalysts for Solar Energy Production and Storage
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Titanium Dioxide-Based Nanostructured Catalysts for Solar Energy Production and Storage

A special issue of Catalysts (ISSN 2073-4344). This special issue belongs to the section "Photocatalysis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 December 2021) | Viewed by 11355

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ranjit T. Koodali

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USA
Interests: solar energy conversion; hydrogen economy; environmental remediation; drug delivery to the brain; machine learning
Dr. Shivatharsiny Yohi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, University of Jaffna, Jaffna 40000, Sri Lanka
Interests: nanomaterial; solar fuel; environmental remediation; solar cell; perovskites; metal chalcogenides

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The global consumption of fossil fuels has increased significantly over the past half-century. Notably, there has been around an eight-fold increase since 1950, and their use has roughly doubled since 1980. However, the types of fuel we rely on have also shifted, from solely coal towards a combination of coal and oil, and then a mixture of coal, oil, and gas. Today, coal consumption is falling in many parts of the world. But oil and gas are still growing. The depletion of fossil fuels and their associated challenges with climate change has led to the emergence of the need to develop new technologies to overcome the energy demands faced by the world today. Renewable technologies based on solar energy conversion can potentially meet the burgeoning energy demands and also mitigate challenges associated with greenhouse house gas emissions. In this regard, materials on the nanometer scale show immense promise due to their attractive physical, chemical, catalytic, and optical properties. Nanostructured materials based photocatalytic generation of solar fuels that include hydrogen production from the splitting of water and reduction of carbon dioxide has great potential to support the future economy. Many studies related to the development of nanostructured materials for several applications, including solar cell applications, water splitting, and storage of gases, are ongoing to support the energy demands of the current century, and, thus, provide better solutions for future world energy needs.

This Special Issue will present and discuss the use of different nanostructured catalysts, such as TiO2-based oxide and/or mixed oxide materials, metal-doped oxides, etc. with advanced synthetic approaches, and its applications in solar fuel generation through photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical processes, and future prospects to improve the efficiency of solar-fuel production. We, therefore invite investigators to contribute review, perspective, and original papers related to recent findings in the field of photocatalysis for renewable fuels using titanium dioxide-based materials.

Prof. Dr. Ranjit T. Koodali
Dr. Shivatharsiny Yohi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Catalysts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • titanium dioxide
  • doped materials
  • solar fuel
  • nanostructured materials
  • photocatalysis

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1794 KiB  
Article
TiO2-HfN Radial Nano-Heterojunction: A Hot Carrier Photoanode for Sunlight-Driven Water-Splitting
by Sheng Zeng, Triratna Muneshwar, Saralyn Riddell, Ajay Peter Manuel, Ehsan Vahidzadeh, Ryan Kisslinger, Pawan Kumar, Kazi Mohammad Monirul Alam, Alexander E. Kobryn, Sergey Gusarov, Kenneth C. Cadien and Karthik Shankar
Catalysts 2021, 11(11), 1374; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/catal11111374 - 14 Nov 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2410
Abstract
The lack of active, stable, earth-abundant, and visible-light absorbing materials to replace plasmonic noble metals is a critical obstacle for researchers in developing highly efficient and cost-effective photocatalytic systems. Herein, a core–shell nanotube catalyst was fabricated consisting of atomic layer deposited HfN shell [...] Read more.
The lack of active, stable, earth-abundant, and visible-light absorbing materials to replace plasmonic noble metals is a critical obstacle for researchers in developing highly efficient and cost-effective photocatalytic systems. Herein, a core–shell nanotube catalyst was fabricated consisting of atomic layer deposited HfN shell and anodic TiO2 support layer with full-visible regime photoactivity for photoelectrochemical water splitting. The HfN active layer has two unique characteristics: (1) A large bandgap between optical and acoustic phonon modes and (2) No electronic bandgap, which allows a large population of long life-time hot carriers, which are used to enhance the photoelectrochemical performance. The photocurrent density (≈2.5 mA·cm−2 at 1 V vs. Ag/AgCl) obtained in this study under AM 1.5G 1 Sun illumination is unprecedented, as it is superior to most existing plasmonic noble metal-decorated catalysts and surprisingly indicates a photocurrent response that extends to 730 nm. The result demonstrates the far-reaching application potential of replacing active HER/HOR noble metals such as Au, Ag, Pt, Pd, etc. with low-cost plasmonic ceramics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Titanium Dioxide-Based Nanostructured Catalysts for Solar Energy Production and Storage)
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17 pages, 3993 KiB  
Article
Influence of Bio-Based Surfactants on TiO2 Thin Films as Photoanodes for Electro-Photocatalysis
by Fanny Duquet, Amr Ahmed Nada, Matthieu Rivallin, Florence Rouessac, Christina Villeneuve-Faure and Stéphanie Roualdes
Catalysts 2021, 11(10), 1228; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/catal11101228 - 12 Oct 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1582
Abstract
Photocatalytic water splitting into hydrogen is considered as one of the key solutions to the current demand for eco-responsible energy. To improve the efficiency and sustainability of this process, the development of a TiO2-based photoanode by adding bio-sourced surfactants to the [...] Read more.
Photocatalytic water splitting into hydrogen is considered as one of the key solutions to the current demand for eco-responsible energy. To improve the efficiency and sustainability of this process, the development of a TiO2-based photoanode by adding bio-sourced surfactants to the sol–gel preparation method has been considered. Three different polymeric biosurfactants (GB, GC, and BIO) have been tested, giving rise to three different materials being structurally and morphologically characterized by XRD, Rietveld refinement, BET, SEM, AFM, and XPS, which was completed by light absorption, photocatalytic (Pilkington test), electronic (EIS and C-AFM), and photoelectrochemical (cyclic voltammetry) measurements. Correlations between the structure/morphology of materials and their functional properties have been established. One specific surfactant has been proven as the most suitable to lead to materials with optimized photoelectrochemical performance in direct relation with their photocatalytic properties essentially controlled by their specific surface area. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Titanium Dioxide-Based Nanostructured Catalysts for Solar Energy Production and Storage)
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13 pages, 3270 KiB  
Article
Cost Effective Solvothermal Method to Synthesize Zn-Doped TiO2 Nanomaterials for Photovoltaic and Photocatalytic Degradation Applications
by Tharmakularasa Rajaramanan, Sivagowri Shanmugaratnam, Vijayakumar Gurunanthanan, Shivatharsiny Yohi, Dhayalan Velauthapillai, Punniamoorthy Ravirajan and Meena Senthilnanthanan
Catalysts 2021, 11(6), 690; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/catal11060690 - 29 May 2021
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3634
Abstract
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a commonly used wide bandgap semiconductor material for energy and environmental applications. Although it is a promising candidate for photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications, its overall performance is still limited due to low mobility of porous TiO2 [...] Read more.
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a commonly used wide bandgap semiconductor material for energy and environmental applications. Although it is a promising candidate for photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications, its overall performance is still limited due to low mobility of porous TiO2 and its limited spectral response. This limitation can be overcome by several ways, one of which is doping that could be used to improve the light harvesting properties of TiO2 by tuning its bandgap. TiO2 doped with elements, such as alkali-earth metals, transition metals, rare-earth elements, and nonmetals, were found to improve its performance in the photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications. Among the doped TiO2 nanomaterials, transition metal doped TiO2 nanomaterials perform efficiently by suppressing the relaxation and recombination of charge carriers and improving the absorption of light in the visible region. This work reports the possibility of enhancing the performance of TiO2 towards Dye Sensitised Solar Cells (DSSCs) and photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) by employing Zn doping on TiO2 nanomaterials. Zn doping was carried out by varying the mole percentage of Zn on TiO2 by a facile solvothermal method and the synthesized nanomaterials were characterised. The XRD (X-Ray Diffraction) studies confirmed the presence of anatase phase of TiO2 in the synthesized nanomaterials, unaffected by Zn doping. The UV-Visible spectrum of Zn-doped TiO2 showed a red shift which could be attributed to the reduced bandgap resulted by Zn doping. Significant enhancement in Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) was observed with 1.0 mol% Zn-doped TiO2 based DSSC, which was 35% greater than that of the control device. In addition, it showed complete degradation of MB within 3 h of light illumination and rate constant of 1.5466×10−4s−1 resembling zeroth order reaction. These improvements are attributed to the reduced bandgap energy and the reduced charge recombination by Zn doping on TiO2. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Titanium Dioxide-Based Nanostructured Catalysts for Solar Energy Production and Storage)
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12 pages, 3980 KiB  
Article
SnS2/TiO2 Nanocomposites for Hydrogen Production and Photodegradation under Extended Solar Irradiation
by Sivagowri Shanmugaratnam, Balaranjan Selvaratnam, Aravind Baride, Ranjit Koodali, Punniamoorthy Ravirajan, Dhayalan Velauthapillai and Yohi Shivatharsiny
Catalysts 2021, 11(5), 589; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/catal11050589 - 30 Apr 2021
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 2805
Abstract
Earth–abundant transition metal chalcogenide materials are of great research interest for energy production and environmental remediation, as they exhibit better photocatalytic activity due to their suitable electronic and optical properties. This study focuses on the photocatalytic activity of flower-like SnS2 nanoparticles (composed [...] Read more.
Earth–abundant transition metal chalcogenide materials are of great research interest for energy production and environmental remediation, as they exhibit better photocatalytic activity due to their suitable electronic and optical properties. This study focuses on the photocatalytic activity of flower-like SnS2 nanoparticles (composed of nanosheet subunits) embedded in TiO2 synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. The materials were characterized using different techniques, and their photocatalytic activity was assessed for hydrogen evolution reaction and the degradation of methylene blue. Among the catalysts studied, 10 wt. % of SnS2 loaded TiO2 nanocomposite shows an optimum hydrogen evolution rate of 195.55 µmolg−1, whereas 15 wt. % loading of SnS2 on TiO2 exhibits better performance against the degradation of methylene blue (MB) with the rate constant of 4.415 × 10−4 s−1 under solar simulated irradiation. The improved performance of these materials can be attributed to the effective photo-induced charge transfer and reduced recombination, which make these nanocomposite materials promising candidates for the development of high-performance next-generation photocatalyst materials. Further, scavenging experiments were carried out to confirm the reactive oxygen species (ROS) involved in the photocatalytic degradation. It can be observed that there was a 78% reduction in the rate of degradation when IPA was used as the scavenger, whereas around 95% reduction was attained while N2 was used as the scavenger. Notably, very low degradation (<5%) was attained when the dye alone was directly under solar irradiation. These results further validate that the •OH radical and the superoxide radicals can be acknowledged for the degradation mechanism of MB, and the enhancement of degradation efficiency may be due to the combined effect of in situ dye sensitization during the catalysis and the impregnation of low bandgap materials on TiO2. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Titanium Dioxide-Based Nanostructured Catalysts for Solar Energy Production and Storage)
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