The most important energy challenge of the near future is to produce clean energy from renewable sources. The using of solar energy to split water in order to produce hydrogen can represent a good solution. In addition this process uses TiO₂ as catalyst, cheap, abundant and chemical stable material.

In the recent years  titania nanotubes, nanowires, nanofibers, nanorods,  have been investigated to create pathways, potentially enhancing electron percolation, light conversion, as well as to improve ion diffusion at the semiconductor–electrolyte interface [1].

From the pioneers works of  Kasuga [2] many studies have been carried out in order to improve the performances of the 1 D titania structures. Ion doping is one of  the most classical and efficient technique to avoid the fast recombination of the photo-generated electron/hole pairs and  to shift the photo-response of  TiO₂ into visible spectrum [3]. Particularly interesting is the effect of the introduction of  vanadium in the TiO₂ lattice [4].

In this work anatase nanowires have been doped with vanadium by wet impregnation technique using VO(acac)₂. After calcination treatment the samples have been characterized by Xray diffraction, nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms applying BET model, Transmission Electron Microscopy, HT-XRD, Infra-red and Raman spectroscopy. Photocatalytic H₂ production reaction, carried out on TiO₂ suspensions in a closed gas-circulation system using a high-pressure Hg lamp as the light source, has been also discussed.

References

[1] Paulose M and alt. Journal of  Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemistry 178 (2006) 8–15

[2] Kasuga T, Hiramatsu M, Hoson A, Sekino T, Niihara K Langmuir 14 (1998) 3160.

[3] Choi WY, Termin A, Hoffmann MR Journal of Physical Chemistry 98 (1994) 51  13669-13679

[4] Klosek S, Raftery D  Journal of Physical Chemistry  B 105 (2001)  14  2815-2819   

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