Double-side illuminated titania nanotubes for high volume hydrogen generation by water splitting

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

A sonoelectrochemical anodization method is proposed to synthesize TiO 2 nanotubular arrays on both sides of a titanium foil (TiO 2 /Ti/TiO 2 ). Highly ordered TiO 2 nanotubular arrays of 16 cm 2 area with uniform surface distribution can be obtained using this anodization procedure. These double-sided TiO 2 /Ti/TiO 2 materials are used as both photoanode (carbon-doped titania nanotubes) and cathode (Pt nanoparticles dispersed on TiO 2 nanotubes; PtTiO 2 /Ti/PtTiO 2 ) in a specially designed photoelectrochemical cell to generate hydrogen by water splitting at a rate of 38 ml h −1 . The nanomaterials are characterized by FESEM, HRTEM, STEM, EDS, FFT, SAED and XPS techniques. The present approach can be used for large-scale hydrogen generation using renewable energy sources.