The Visible-light Responsive TiO2/Graphene Heterojunction Materials
Grade Level at Time of Presentation
Sophomore
Major
-
Minor
-
Institution
Western Kentucky University
KY House District #
59
KY Senate District #
26
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Yan Cao, PhD
Department
department of chemistry
Abstract
The Visible-light Responsive TiO2/Graphene Heterojunction Materials
Logan Parker, Ying Chen, Hongyan Gao, Yan Cao*
Institute for Combustion Science and Environmental Technology, Department of Chemistry, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101
Titanium dioxide is a known photocatalyst, but can only be responsive to the UV light spectrum of the sun’s emitted light. Previous research has shown that combining graphene with titanium dioxide highly enhances the photocatalytic ability of the Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) by allowing the solar cell to access the visible light spectrum, which is majority of the sun’s emitted light. This project studied the effects of the size of the titanium dioxide nanoparticle on the photocatalytic ability of the solar cell, assuming that smaller titanium dioxide nanoparticles would have greater contact with graphene sheets, which would create a higher photocatalytic ability. Through a modified hydrothermal method (Chae et. al., 2003), titanium dioxide was synthesized with varying sizes, this was followed to be combined with reduced graphene sheets using a modified hydrothermal method. To determine the photo-responsibility of obtained composite materials, we used the photodegradation tests of rhodamine B to demonstrate their effectiveness. It was found that the smaller the size of the titanium dioxide nanoparticle, the greater the degradation of rhodamine B, which validated the project hypothesis.
The Visible-light Responsive TiO2/Graphene Heterojunction Materials
The Visible-light Responsive TiO2/Graphene Heterojunction Materials
Logan Parker, Ying Chen, Hongyan Gao, Yan Cao*
Institute for Combustion Science and Environmental Technology, Department of Chemistry, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101
Titanium dioxide is a known photocatalyst, but can only be responsive to the UV light spectrum of the sun’s emitted light. Previous research has shown that combining graphene with titanium dioxide highly enhances the photocatalytic ability of the Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) by allowing the solar cell to access the visible light spectrum, which is majority of the sun’s emitted light. This project studied the effects of the size of the titanium dioxide nanoparticle on the photocatalytic ability of the solar cell, assuming that smaller titanium dioxide nanoparticles would have greater contact with graphene sheets, which would create a higher photocatalytic ability. Through a modified hydrothermal method (Chae et. al., 2003), titanium dioxide was synthesized with varying sizes, this was followed to be combined with reduced graphene sheets using a modified hydrothermal method. To determine the photo-responsibility of obtained composite materials, we used the photodegradation tests of rhodamine B to demonstrate their effectiveness. It was found that the smaller the size of the titanium dioxide nanoparticle, the greater the degradation of rhodamine B, which validated the project hypothesis.