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.