Synthesis and characterization of carbon nanotube-

nanoparticle composites aiming the photoreduction of CO

2

to hydrocarbons by using visible light

J. E. Benedetti, Bruna Mancuzo and A. F. Nogueira

Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil

A promising approach to remove atmospheric CO
2
, a gas usually associated to the greenhouse
effect and therefore to the global climate change, is the carbon capture and storage. In this
technology, CO
2
is trapped and can then be photoconverted to a value-added product without
the use of additional CO
2
, which creates an alternative to hydrocarbon production. Titanium
dioxide has been considered the most appropriate candidate for CO
2
photoreduction due to its
powerful oxidative properties, low cost and photocorrosion resistance. However, the use of
TiO
2
in photocatalysis under visible light is limited due to the high energy of the band gap
(E
g
) transition (3.2 eV for anatase crystalline phase). The band gap energy of TiO
2

corresponds to a major absorption within the UV region. This limitation can be circumvented
by using cadmium sulphide (CdS, E
g
= 2.4 eV) as a sensitizer to mesoporous TiO
2
. In order to
improve the photocatalytic performance of this material, multi-wall carbon nanotubes
(MWCNT) decorated with platinum nanoparticles can also be introduced in the system to
give rise to a single composite material with promising photocatalytic activity. Thus, in this
work we prepared a CdS/TiO
2
/MWCNT/Pt composites for the photocatalytic reduction of
CO
2
by using visible light and water vapor only. Figure 1a presents the SEM images of
CdS/TiO
2
. Figure 1b presents the SEM images of MWCNT decorated with platinum
nanoparticles. Figure 1c shows the SEM images of the CdS/TiO
2
/MWCNT/Pt composite. In
the composite images, it is possible to observe that CdS/TiO
2
nanoparticles and MWCNT/Pt
are completely dispersed in the system, which can improve the photocatalysis. Figure 1d
shows the UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy of composite. The composite exhibits a
broad adsorption band from 200 to 500 nm, indicating an effective photoabsorption property
for the photocatalytic system. In order to test the photoreduction of CO
2
to hydrocarbons,
approximately 300 mg of the composite material was deposited on a glass, which was then
placed inside a homemade photocatalytic cell. The system was first evacuated to a base
pressure of ca. 7 mBar to remove air and then dosed with 0.6 PSI of a mixture of CO
2
and
H
2
O . Our preliminary results indicated the presence of hydrogen gas, methanol and methane.


200 300 400 500 600 700 800
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.0
A
b
s
o
r
b
a
n
c
e

(
A
.
U
.
)
Wavelength (nm)
Composite

Figure 1: Scanning electron microscopy images of: (a) CdS/TiO
2
, (b) MWCNT/Pt, (c)
composite and (d) UV-visible absorption spectra of the composite material
(CdS/TiO
2
/MWCNT/Pt).
Keywords: photocatalysis, titanium dioxide, cadmium sulphide, and CO
2
photoreduction.
jebenedetti@iqm.unicamp.br LNES, Unicamp, CEP13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil