A Novel Tin-Doped Titanium Oxide Nanocomposite for Efficient Photo-Anodic Water Splitting

Manzar Sohail; Nadeem Baig; Muhammad Sher; Rabia Jamil; Muhammad Altaf; Sultan Akhtar; Muhammad Sharif

doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b03876

A Novel Tin-Doped Titanium Oxide Nanocomposite for Efficient Photo-Anodic Water Splitting

ACS Omega. 2020 Mar 18;5(12):6405-6413. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b03876. eCollection 2020 Mar 31.

Authors

Manzar Sohail¹, Nadeem Baig^{2

3}, Muhammad Sher⁴, Rabia Jamil¹, Muhammad Altaf⁵, Sultan Akhtar⁶, Muhammad Sharif²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, School of Natural Sciences, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
² Chemistry Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.
³ Center for Research Excellence in Desalination and Water Treatment, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Government College University, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.
⁶ Electron Microscopy Unit, Institute for Research and Medical Consultations, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Herein, we report the expedient synthesis of new nanocomposite Sn_0.39Ti_0.61O₂·TiO₂ flakes using simple sol-gel and calcination methods. In order to prepare this material, first, we generated a polymeric gel using cost-effective and easily accessible precursors such as SnCl₄, titanium isopropoxide, and tetrahydrofuran (THF). A small amount of triflic acid was used to initiate THF polymerization. The calcination of the resulting gel at 500 °C produced a Sn-Ti bimetallic nanocomposite. This newly synthesized Sn_0.39Ti_0.61O₂·TiO₂ was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and UV-visible spectroscopy. The photoelectrochemical (PEC) studies were performed for the first time using Sn_0.39Ti_0.61O₂·TiO₂ coated over fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) under simulated 1 sun solar radiation. The chronoamperometric study of the Sn_0.39Ti_0.61O₂·TiO₂/FTO revealed the repeatable and substantially higher photocurrent for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) when compared to only TiO₂. Moreover, the synthesized material exhibited high stability both in the presence and absence of light. The photocatalytic studies suggested that the sol-gel-synthesized Sn_0.39Ti_0.61O₂·TiO₂ can be efficiently used as a photoanode in the water-splitting reaction.