Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution from SiO2@ZnIn2S4 Nanoparticles Synthesized Using Microwave-assisted Hydrothermal Method

• Main Authors: Si-Ping Liu, 劉思屏
• Other Authors: Tai-Chou Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/70545259189340084302

碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 化學工程與材料工程學系 === 104 === Up to date, more and more evidences show that global warming and extreme weather conditions are associated with the CO2 level in atmosphere. Current energy supply and use do not be seen to reduce energy-related green-house-gas emission. Therefore, only changes in production and consumption path can decrease the dependence on fossil fuels. Developing low-carbon energy technologies is critical. Many agencies projected that the advances in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies can support climate change and energy security goals. In particular, hydrogen from renewable energies provides flexibility and sustainability for future low-carbon energy systems. ZnIn2S4 (ZIS) is a visible-light-driven photocatalyst with energy band gap of ~2.4 eV. In our previous work, we developed a microwave-assisted hydrothermal method to generate ZIS particles. The gold-silver nanoshells (GS-NS) with tunable absorption were embedded in ZIS matrix for plasmonic-enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production. However, the coverage and thickness of ZIS on top of GS-NS were not precisely controlled. In this work, we focused on preparing SiO2@ZIS core-shell nanoparticles with tunable thickness of ZIS shells. Control over the core-shell particles enables us to study structure-property relations. Our experimental findings showed that the surface modification on SiO2 surfaces promoted nucleation of ZIS, leading to a homogeneous coverage. In addition, the thickness of ZIS shell can be easily tuned using microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis. Thus, our facile procedure paves the way to generate a more complex structure, GS-NS@dielectric@photocatalyst, for optimization of solar hydrogen production.