Research Projects

Hydrogen is a promising energy source for renewable and sustainable energy production, with the National Hydrogen Mission in the Union Budget 2021 highlighting its importance in the Indian renewable energy scenario. However, the challenge lies in clean production and storage of hydrogen fuel. Conventional methods for commercial hydrogen production are expensive, hazardous, and time-consuming. The National Hydrogen Mission focuses on efficient green hydrogen production, including water splitting using techniques like electrochemical, photoelectrochemical, photobiological, and photocatalytic methods. Semiconductor photocatalytic hydrogen production can be a complete green energy solution, as it does not require any other energy source besides solar energy. However, current photocatalysts are of lower efficiency and have performance limited to the UV region. Strategies to improve the performance of semiconductor photocatalysts include elevating photon absorption, reducing charge carrier recombination, and improving charge transport characteristics. Titanium, a semiconductor photocatalyst, has been the most studied for hydrogen production since its discovery in 1972. However, its overall performance is limited due to low absorption wavelength, high charge carrier recombination, and low charge transport. The proposed work aims to synthesize multiphasic titania and optimize the anatase-rutile ratio for photocatalytic hydrogen production. Visible active multiphasic titania-metal oxide nanoheterojunction in different metal oxide and anatase-rutile phase ratios will also be prepared, analyzed, tested, and optimized for best performance. The development of highly efficient visible active nanoheterojunction based titania photocatalysts will provide an opportunity for major hydrogen production industries to adopt this low-cost and green technique.