Discipline: Chemistry & Chemical Sciences
Subcategory: STEM Research
Keerthi Senevirathne - Florida A&M University
Co-Author(s): Nquel Bonner Florida A&M University; Kahlil Washington Florida A&M UNiversity
The major hurdles in photocatalytic water splitting are the availability of stable catalysts that absorb visible light and the prevention of recombination of photogenerated electron-hole carriers. Nanofiber heterojunction catalyst; In2O3/TiO2 has been studied as a model system to explore the effect of heterojunction structure of photocatalytic water splitting. In addition, new synthetic methods have been explored to make low cost co-catalysts utilizing core-shell type structure as an alternative to pristine noble metal co-catalysts such as Pt. The synthetic method of co-electrospinning technique utilized to fabricate multi-component heterojunction nanofiber photocatalysts and the correlation of the heterojunction structure with the activity of water splitting will be presented and discussed. Furthermore, the role of low cost core-shell type nanoparticle co-catalyst; Cu@Pt synthesized by solution-phase method on photocatalytic activity will also be discussed. Physicochemical characterization of nanofibers catalysts and core-shell co-catalysts will be presented along with photocatalytic hydrogen generation analysis.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): Authors like to acknowledge National Science Foundation for the support of this work through HBCU-UP-RIA catalyst grant.
Faculty Advisor: None Listed,
NSF Affiliation: HBCU-UP