Cerium Synchronous Doping in Anatase for Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production from Ethanol-Water Mixtures

Cerium element with a unique electric structure can be used to modify semiconductor photocatalysts to enhance their photocatalytic performances. In this work, Ce-doped TiO(2) (Ce/TiO(2)) was successfully achieved using the sol-gel method. The structural characterization methods confirm that Ce was doped in the lattice of anatase TiO(2), which led to a smaller grain size. The performance test results show that the Ce doped in anatase TiO(2) significantly enhances the charge transport efficiency and broadens the light absorption range, resulting in higher photocatalytic performance. The Ce/TiO(2) exhibited a photocurrent density of 10.9 μA/cm(2) at 1.0 V vs. Ag/AgCl, 2.5 times higher than that of pure TiO(2) (4.3 μA/cm(2)) under AM 1.5 G light. The hydrogen (H(2)) production rate of the Ce/TiO(2) was approximately 0.33 μmol/h/g, which is more than twice as much as that of the pure anatase TiO(2) (0.12 μmol/h/g). This work demonstrates the effect of Ce doping in the lattice of TiO(2) for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production.