Abstract
KLaTiO4 is a promising photocatalyst, producing 9.54(11) µmol of hydrogen gas per hour. Its high bandgap, of 4.09 eV, makes it unsuitable for direct photocatalysis under sunlight irradiation. In this study two novel methods of doping KLaTiO4 with nitrogen were studied, in an attempt to reduce the bandgap of KLaTiO4 without inducing structural degradation of the photocatalyst, which adversely affects the hydrogen evolution rate. The first method involves post-synthesis calcination of KLaTiO4 with urea under a nitrogen atmosphere, and the second method attempts to introduce nitrogen during synthesis, by replacing TiO2 with TiN as a starting reagent. The samples were structurally characterised using powder X-ray diffraction and their bandgap and photocatalytic performance determined by Tauc plot and hydrogen evolution testing. Density Function Theory calculations have been used to probe the likely site of nitrogen doping.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 112568 |
| Journal | Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2024 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
BJK acknowledges the support of the Australian Research Council for this work that was facilitated by access to Sydney Analytical, a core research facility at the University of Sydney and was, in part, undertaken at the Powder Diffraction Beamline of the Australian Synchrotron. The DFT calculations were performed at the Supercomputer Center in the China Spallation Neutron Source, and we are grateful to Dr. Junrong Zhang for his guidance on the usage of VASP software.
Keywords
- DFT
- Hydrogen Evolution
- Nitrogen Doping
- Photocatalysis