Enhancement of Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution by Using Ultrasound Irradiation during Synthesis of TiO2 Supported Clinoptilolite Photocatalyst

Hydrogen evolution via water splitting was investigated over the sonochemically synthesized TiO-2clinoptilolite photocatalysts with the aim of assessing the effect of ultrasonic irradiation during the impregnation procedure employing for TiO2 deposition. To this aim, photocatalysts containing 10wt% titania were prepared by an impregnation method in the presence and absence of ultrasound irradiation. The samples were characterized by XRD, FESEM, EDX, BET, FTIR, PL and UV-vis techniques. The characterization results indicated that ultrasound irradiation endowed the photocatalysts with uniform morphology, higher surface area and more homogenous dispersion. In addition, the analyses also exhibited less population of particle aggregates, a strong titania-support interaction and a lower electron-hole pair recombination rate. The high photocatalytic activity, 502.29, μmol/gTio2.h was obtained for TiO2/Clinoptilolite photocatalyst prepared by the ultrasound assisted the impregnation method (TiO2/CLT(UI)), which was about 7 times more than that of bare TiO2. Furthermore, TiO2/CLT(UI) photocatalyst showed sufficient reusability, making it a good choice for photocatalytic water splitting applications.