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Significance Statement
The research interests of Dr Lanbo Di at Dalian University, China, focus on fabrication of nanomaterials by atmospheric-pressure cold plasma technologies and their environmental and energy applications, in particular
(1) Dry plasma fabrication of supported metal catalysts and their environmental applications;
(2) In-solution plasma fabrication of semiconductor materials and their photocatalytic applications.
Figure Legend: Synthesis mechanism of Pt/TiO2 by plasma. The optimal Pt content is 0.5wt%, which is much lower than that in previous works (1.0-1.5wt%). Atmospheric-pressure DBD cold plasma was proved to be an environmentally friendly and efficient method for preparing high performance Pt/TiO2 photocatalyst.
Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing, March 2014, Volume 34, Issue 2, pp 301-311.
Date: 23 Dec 2013.
Lanbo Di, Xiuling Zhang, Zhijian Xu, Kai Wang.
College of Physical Science and Technology, Dalian University, Dalian, 116622, People’s Republic of China.
Abstract
Atmospheric-pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) cold plasma was employed to fabricate Pt/TiO2 photocatalyst using the mixture of Ar and H2 as working gas. X-ray photoelectron microscopy (XPS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) measurements were used to characterize the Pt/TiO2 photocatalyst. The results showed that H2PtCl6 was completely reduced to metallic Pt nanoparticles when the treating time was increased to 6 min. In addition, the Pt/TiO2 photocatalyst prepared by atmospheric-pressure DBD cold plasma (Pt/TiO2-P) showed high dispersion and smaller size of Pt particles, and enhanced metal-support interaction. The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) was chosen as a model reaction to evaluate the activity of the Pt/TiO2photocatalyst. The apparent rate constant of 0.5 wt% Pt/TiO2-P for the MB photodegradation was 1.4 times higher than that over 0.5 wt% Pt/TiO2-C sample (prepared by thermal reduction method). This may be attributed to the smaller size and high dispersion of Pt particles, and the enhanced metal-support interaction in Pt/TiO2-P sample, which was consistent with the results of XPS and TEM. The influence of Pt content on photocatalytic activity of Pt/TiO2-P was investigated, and the highest apparent rate constant was obtained at 0.5 wt% Pt content. This was much lower than that prepared by conventional methods. Optical emission spectra (OES) were observed during the reduction process of Pt ions by atmospheric-pressure DBD cold plasma, and the reduction mechanism was further discussed.
