CoS2/TiO2 Nanocomposites for Hydrogen Production under UV Irradiation

Sivagowri Shanmugaratnam; Dhayalan Velauthapillai; Punniamoorthy Ravirajan; Alfred Antony Christy; Yohi Shivatharsiny

doi:10.3390/ma12233882

CoS₂/TiO₂ Nanocomposites for Hydrogen Production under UV Irradiation

Materials (Basel). 2019 Nov 24;12(23):3882. doi: 10.3390/ma12233882.

Authors

Sivagowri Shanmugaratnam^{1

2}, Dhayalan Velauthapillai¹, Punniamoorthy Ravirajan², Alfred Antony Christy³, Yohi Shivatharsiny⁴

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Engineering and Science, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, 5020 Bergen, Norway.
² Clean Energy Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Jaffna, Jaffna 40000, Sri Lanka.
³ Department of Natural Science, University of Agder, 4630 Kristiansand, Norway.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of Jaffna, Jaffna 40000, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Transition metal chalcogenides have intensively focused on photocatalytic hydrogen production for a decade due to their stronger edge and the quantum confinement effect. This work mainly focuses on synthesis and hydrogen production efficiencies of cobalt disulfide (CoS₂)-embedded TiO₂ nanocomposites. Materials are synthesized by using a hydrothermal approach and the hydrogen production efficiencies of pristine CoS₂, TiO₂ nanoparticles and CoS₂/TiO₂ nanocomposites are compared under UV irradiation. A higher amount of hydrogen production (2.55 mmol g^-1) is obtained with 10 wt.% CoS₂/TiO₂ nanocomposite than pristineTiO₂ nanoparticles, whereas no hydrogen production was observed with pristine CoS₂ nanoparticles. This result unveils that the metal dichalcogenide-CoS₂ acts as an effective co-catalyst and nanocrystalline TiO₂ serves as an active site by effectively separating the photogenerated electron-hole pair. This study lays down a new approach for developing transition metal dichalcogenide materials with significant bandgaps that can effectively harness solar energy for hydrogen production.

Keywords: hydrogen; hydrothermal; titania; transition metal chalcogenides; water splitting.