title: New nanostructured silica incorporated with isolated Ti material for the photocatalytic conversion of CO2 to fuels.
abstract: In this work, new nanoporous silica (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology-6 (KIT-6)-dried or KIT-6-calcined) incorporated with isolated Ti materials with different Si/Ti ratios (Si/Ti = 200, 100, and 50) has been synthesized and investigated to establish photocatalytic reduction of CO2 in the presence of H2O vapors. The properties of the materials have been characterized through N2 adsorption/desorption, UV-vis, TEM, FT-IR, and XPS analysis techniques. The intermediate amount of the isolated Ti (Si/Ti = 100) has resulted to be more uniformly distributed on the surface and within the three-dimensional pore structure of the KIT-6 material, without its structure collapsing, than the other two ratios (Si/Ti = 200 and 50). However, titania agglomerates have been observed to have formed due to the increased Ti content (Si/Ti = 50). The Ti-KIT-6 (calcined) materials in the reaction showed higher activity than the Ti-KIT-6 (dried) materials, which produced CH4, H2, CO, and CH3OH (vapors) as fuel products. The Ti-KIT-6 (Si/Ti = 100) material also showed more OH groups, which are useful to obtain a higher production rate of the products, particularly methane, which was even higher than the rate of the best commercial TiO2 (Aeroxide P25, Evonik Industries AG, Essen, Germany) photocatalyst.
authors.forename: Parveen
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Akhter
authors.forename: Murid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hussain
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Saracco
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Torino 10129, Italy. nunzio.russo@polito.it.
authors.forename: Nunzio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Russo