Photocatalytic Reforming of Biomass into Hydrogen over Graphene Dots

Hsisheng Teng^1*, Van-Can Nguyen¹

¹Chemical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan

* Presenter:Hsisheng Teng, email:hteng@mail.ncku.edu.tw

Photocatalytic reforming of biomass into H2 combining with its photosynthesis counterpart constitutes a sustainable carbon cycle that produces a clean solar fuel. Using graphene (or carbon)-based nanoparticles as photocatalysts of the H2 evolution reaction has attracted considerable attention because of the potential of these materials to outperform other materials by introducing specifically targeted functionalities. This study reports the excellent performance of graphene-based media for photocatalytically reforming sugar and glucose into H2. The photocatalysts were synthesized by functionalizing graphene oxide dots (GODs) using sulfur and nitrogen heteroatoms. Our results demonstrated that S and N codoping introduced quaternary N to patch vacancy defects of the graphene framework in the GODs, which extended the resonant -conjugation domain to induce the separation of photogenerated charges. The functionalized GODs effectively adsorbed glucose (or sugar) molecules for oxidative reforming. With Pt as the cocatalyst, the synthesized SNGODs catalyzed sugar and glucose reforming to produce H2 at quantum yields of 11% and 7.4%, respectively, under 420-nm monochromatic irradiation. Our study provides considerable advancements in the field of environmentally benign photocatalysts for biomass reforming to achieve a sustainable carbon cycle for producing hydrogen energy.

Keywords: Hydrogen production, Biomass reforming, Photocatalysis, Graphene Dots