Mesoporous simonkolleite-TiO sub(2) nanostructured composite for simultaneous photocatalytic hydrogen production and dye decontamination

In the present work, mesoporous simonkolleite-TiO sub(2) composite was prepared with sol-gel method. The composite photocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and Raman spectroscopy. Also, surface area and particle size were analyzed using BET equation. The photocatalytic hydrogen production with simultaneous decolorization of Remazole Red (F3B) dye was investigated over TiO sub(2) and simonkolleite-TiO sub(2) composite under UV-vis light irradiation. It was worthy to be noted that the rate of hydrogen production over simonkolleite-TiO sub(2) is higher that produced over TiO sub(2). The maximum amount of photocatalytic-produced hydrogen was 2.1 mmol and 3.3 mmol within 240 min using TiO sub(2) and simonkolleite-TiO sub(2) composite, respectively. The specific production rate of hydrogen from photocatalytic conversion of dye was calculated. Improvement of apparent quantum yield (22.07%) after 5 h was achieved upon addition of simonkolleite to TiO sub(2). This high apparent quantum yield proves that the system proposed in this study could be a hopeful approach toward using sunlight energy as outlook energy source. The obtained results suggested that a new process for H sub(2) production from wastewater could be achieved. The process also provides a method for degradation of organic pollutants with simultaneous H sub(2) production.