Development of Modified TiO2 for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production

Abstract

TiO2 has advantages such as excellent photocatalytic performance, high chemical stability, low price, and not easy to produce secondary pollution. Therefore, the photocatalytic hydrogen production over TiO2 catalyst was an effective way to achieve hydrogen production from solar energy with low energy consumption and low cost. However, the TiO2 catalyst responds only to UV light due to its wide forbidden band, and the electrons and holes were prone to recombination, resulting in the decrease in photocatalytic activity and quantum efficiency. In recent years, researchers have conducted a series of modifications on TiO2 to improve its visible light response, reduce the rate of carrier recombination, and thereby enhance the efficiency of photocatalytic hydrogen production. This paper reviews several main modification methods of TiO2 including morphology regulation, ion doping, semiconductor recombination, noble metal deposition, dye sensitization and their research progress in the field of photocatalytic hydrogen production. Finally, the modification of TiO2 photocatalyst in the future was predicted.