Hierarchical tungsten oxide assemblies such as spindle-like structures, flowers with sharp petals, nanowires and regular hexagonal structures are successfully synthesized via a solvothermal reduction method by simply adjusting the reaction conditions. On the basis of the experimental results, it is determined that the reaction time significantly influences the phase transition, microstructure a...

The photocatalytic conversion of CO2 into useful chemical compounds in water without using organic sacrificial reagents is a promising method to overcome environmental and energy problems. Various synthesized layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are capable of reducing CO2 to CO in an aqueous solution under UV light irradiation. However, it is difficult to oxidize H2O to O2 in a photocatalytic syst...

Double-skin sheet reactor (DSSR) attracts attention in recent years due to the simple design and high mass transfer, but its application to photocatalytic CO2 reduction with immobilized catalyst is still a new trial. In this paper, the three-dimensional models describing the photocatalytic CO2 reduction in DSSR by means of solar energy were developed and numerically simulated, on the basis of t...

Photocatalytic CO2 reduction seems potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and produce renewable energy. A new model of photocatalytic CO2 reduction in optical fiber monolith reactor with multiple inverse lights was developed in this study to improve the conversion of CO2 to CH3OH. The new light distribution equation was derived, by which the light distribution was modeled and analyzed. ...

Abstarct: Nanostructured colloidal semiconductors with heterogeneous photocatalytic behavior have drawn considerable attention over the past few years. This is due to their large surface area, high redox potential of the photogenerated charge carriers, and selective reduction/oxidation of different classes of organic compounds. In the present paper, we have carried out a systematic synthesis of...

ZnO quantum dots and KNb3O8 nanosheets were synthesized by a two-step hydrothermal method for the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to methanol where isopropanol is simultaneously oxidized to acetone . The as-prepared photocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron m...

Heterostructures play an important role not only in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, but also in the field of catalysis. Herein, we report the synthesis of PdO/TiO2 and Pd/TiO2 heterostructured nanobelts by means of a simple co-precipitation method, followed by a reduction process using surface-modified TiO2 nanobelts as templates. The as-obtained heterostructures were characterized by...

We demonstrate plasmonic enhancement of photocatalytic water splitting under visible illumination by integrating strongly plasmonic Au nanoparticles with strongly catalytic TiO2. Under visible illumination, we observe enhancements of up to 66× in the photocatalytic splitting of water in TiO2 with the addition of Au nanoparticles. Above the plasmon resonance, under ultraviolet radiation we obser...

Recent years have witnessed quite a number of worldwide efforts for fabricating CdSe/TiO2 nanotube arrays (CdSe/TNTAs) nanocomposites; however, the construction of a well-defined CdSe/TNTAs binary nanostructure for versatile photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical applications still poses a big challenge. In this work, a hierarchically ordered CdSe/nanoporous TiO2 nanotube arrays (CdSe/NP-TNTAs...

CdS-sensitized Pt/TiO(2) nanosheets with exposed (001) facets were prepared by hydrothermal treatment of a Ti(OC(4)H(9))(4)-HF-H(2)O mixed solution followed by photochemical reduction deposition of Pt nanoparticles (NPs) on TiO(2) nanosheets (TiO(2) NSs) and chemical bath deposition of CdS NPs on Pt/TiO(2) NSs, successively. The UV and visible-light driven photocatalytic activity of the as-prep...