Photocatalytic hydrogen generation through water splitting on nano-crystalline LaFeO3 perovskite

Visible light active ABO3 type photocatalyst with LaFeO3 composition was synthesized by sol-gel method. The photocatalyst was characterized by different techniques such as X-ray diffraction, BET surface area analysis, particle size analysis, scanning electron microscopy, UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–Visible DRS), and photoluminescence spectroscopy. LaFeO3 photocatalyst exhibited an optical band gap of 2.07 eV with the absorption spectrum predominantly in visible region of the spectrum. The BET surface area of photocatalyst LaFeO3 was observed as 9.5 m2/g, with the crystallite size of 38.8 nm as calculated by the Debye-Scherer equation. The photocatalytic activity of LaFeO3 was investigated for hydrogen generation through sacrificial donor assisted photocatalytic water splitting reaction by varying conditions in feasible parametric changes using visible light source, ethanol as a sacrificial donor and Pt solution of H2PtCl6 as a co-catalyst. The rate of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution was observed to be 3315 μmol g−1 h−1 under optimized conditions and using 1 mg dose of photocatalyst with reaction time of 4 h and illumination of 400 W.