CUBIC MESOPOROUS MCM-48 MATERIALS AS VERSATILE SUPPORT MATERIALS FOR PHOTOCATALYTIC SPLITTING OF WATER

摘要

There has been an outburst of research activities in the broad area of solar energy conversion globally. This has been fuelled by an earnest interest to final alternate sources of energy and a deep desire to mitigate problems caused by global climate change. Intense research in this area is being conducted with attention focused on developing new materials, process, and devices for capturing and converting solar energy. Among the new class of materials that have captured the imagination of scientists are periodic mesoporous materials. In 1992, Mobil scientists reported the synthesis of a new class of porous materials belonging to the M41S series prepared using surfactants as sacrificial templates. The initial reports in this field were directed to the development of silica based materials but the emphasis later shifted to the preparation of a wide variety of mesoporous materials. Periodic mesoporous materials are characterized by relatively large specific surface areas, uniform pore sizes that can be varied from 2 nm to as large as 50 nm and large pore volumes (0.5 – 3.0 cm~3/g). These properties make them attractive candidates for numerous applications that include adsorption, catalysis, drug delivery, sensor applications, and solar energy conversion. Among the various classes of mesoporous materials, the cubic phase, MCM-48 is thought to be an interesting material for catalytic applications. This study reports efforts in the direction to utilize MCM-48 as a support to facilitate the high dispersion of active species for the photocatalytic splitting of water to generate hydrogen.