Hydrogen is expected to become the main energy carrier of the future because of its high-energy capacity and environmental friendliness. Hydrogen can be directly produced from the photocatalytic water splitting reaction by using renewable energy resources, i.e. water and solar light, with the aid of a suitable photocatalyst for absorbing light. In this work, the mesoporous-assembled perovskite titanate photocatalysts were synthesized by a sol-gel process with the aid of the structure-directing surfactant, and a combination of sensitizer addition and noble metal loading was employed to modify the perovskite titanate photocatalysts in order to achieve the enhancement of photocatalytic hydrogen production under visible light irradiation. The dependence of the hydrogen production on type of perovskite titanate photocatalysts (MgTiO₃, CaTiO₃, and SrTiO₃), calcination temperature of photocatalyst, type and concentration of electron donor (diethanolamine, DEA and triethanolamine, TEA), sensitizer concentration (Eosin Y, E.Y.), photocatalyst dosage, and initial solution pH, was studied. The experimental results showed that the 0.5 wt.% Pt-loaded mesoporous-assembled SrTiO₃ prepared by the single-step sol-gel method calcined at 650ºC exhibited the highest photocatalytic hydrogen production activity from a 15% (v/v) DEA/distilled water solution with 0.5 mM E.Y. Moreover, the optimum photocatalyst dosage and initial solution pH for the maximum photocatalytic activity of hydrogen production were 6 g/l and 11.6, respectively.

Keyword: Hydrogen production, Mesoporous material, Perovskite titanate, Sensitization, Water Splitting, Visible light