TiO2 doped HKUST-1/CM film in the three-phase photocatalytic ammonia synthesis system

Photocatalytic synthesis of ammonia from N2 and H2O at room temperature and atmospheric pressure is considered to be a safe, clean and sustainable method. Due to the low solubility and diffusion coefficient of nitrogen in water, the rate of ammonia synthesis is significantly hindered. As a result, we develop a kind of thin film photocatalyst, which can be used in gas-liquid-solid three phase reaction system to solve this problem. The catalyst bases on HKUST-1 thin film with high nitrogen adsorption performance and supported with TiO2 nanoparticles with photocatalytic nitrogen fixation performance. The constructed binary composite photocatalyst has a stable structure under a 300 W xenon lamp, which exhibits good photoelectric conversion performance. While characterizing the structure and photoelectric performance of the material, the performance of photocatalytic ammonia synthesis was investigated. The highest ammonia synthesis efficiency was 0.048 μmol·h−1·cm−2, and its performance was 2.8 times that of TiO2/CM catalyst under the same conditions. The thin film catalyst does't contain any N substance and won't interfere with the ammonia synthesis reaction. The preparation process is simplified by directly using the copper source in the CM without additional metal reagent. Moreover, it provides a new idea for the design of photocatalytic catalysts for ammonia synthesis.