Enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen generation of nano-sized mesoporous InNbO4 crystals synthesized via a polyacrylamide gel route

Abstract

As a promising visible-light-driven photocatalyst for hydrogen generation, InNbO 4 of high efficiency dictates the requirements on the high specific surface area and tailored band structure that arouse increasing efforts but remain challenge. Herein, we report fabrication of nanosized InNbO 4 embedded with nano-voids via apolyacrylamide sol-gel route. It exhibits excellent photocatalytic H 2 evolution rates up to ~68.1 μmol•h −1 •g −1 , much better than as-reported counterparts (~1 μmol•h −1 •g −1) obtained via solid-state reaction or doping treatments. The particle sizes, density of nano-voids, as well as the bandgap energy are modulated by using different chelating agents, including tartaric acid (TA), citric acid (CA), acetic acid (AA). Based on high resolution high angle annular dark-field (HAADF) characterizations, it interesting to discover that the photocatalytic performance shows obvious dependence on the voids size. Nano-voids (2~8nm) can maximize the specific surface and thus enhance the photocatalytic performance, while lattice-scale voids (<1.5nm) may become a carrier trapping defects and thus decrease the

Use of metamodels for rapid discovery of narrow bandgap oxide photocatalysts

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Synthesis and characterization of nano-ceramic pigment Co0.5Zn0.5Al2O4 via polyacrylamide gel method

“…The advantages of polyacrylamide gel method are that it is fast, easy, inexpensive and reproducible. In this study, to the best of authors’ knowledge, the preparation of Co 0.5 Zn 0.5 Al 2 O 4 has been carried out through the polyacrylamide gel method for the first time, and the effect of calcination temperature on the structure, particle size and color of synthesized nanopigments has been investigated (Douy, 2001; Zhou et al , 2017, 2018). Furthermore, the process of gelation in the solution is reached by forming a polymer network, which supplies a structural framework for the growth of particles.…”