UV and visibly active photocatalysts for water splitting reaction

UV and visibly active photocatalytic materials based on zeolites have been designed, wherein, a hybrid photocatalytic material comprising charge transfer complex namely, heteropolyacid, a semiconductor and transition metal have been incorporated in the zeolite matrix to facilitate its usage for photoreduction of water to hydrogen. The photocatalytic materials synthesized using zeolite, TiO2 and heteropolyacid (HPA) are active in the UV range and the hydrogen yield works out to be 3000μmol/h/g of TiO2 catalyst in UV range, which is quite low as compared to that reported in literature. The photocatalytic materials developed by incorporation of HPA, TiO2 and Co+2Co+2 are visibly active and are performing well as compared to reported materials in terms of their photoreduction properties and show potential for water splitting reaction in visible light. The maximum hydrogen yield works out to be 2304.9μmol//h/g of TiO2 in visible range which is substantially high as compared to other reported values for supported TiO2 based photocatalytic materials.