Optimizing the Performance of the Meso-Scale Continuous-Flow Photoreactor for Efficient Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction with Water Over Pt/TiO2/RGO Composites

• Samar Nabil^a
• Elsayed A. Shalaby^a
• Marwa F. Elkady^b,c
• Yoshihisa Matsushita^d
• Ahmed H. El-Shazly^b,e

• ^aDepartment of Environmental Studies, Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, Alexandria University, Alexandria, 21526, Egypt
• ^bChemical and Petrochemicals Engineering Department, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, Alexandria, 21934, Egypt
• ^cFabrication Technology Department, Advanced Technology and New Materials Research Institute (ATNMRI), City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications, Alexandria, Egypt
• ^dEgypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, 179 New Borg El‐Arab, Alexandria, 21934, Egypt
• ^eChemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Alexandria, 21544, Egypt

Tuning the reaction parameters to maximize products yield is one of the major needs for any process. The goal of this research is to increase the reduction of CO₂ with water by examining the operating parameters of a meso-scale continuous-flow type photochemical reactor over hydrothermally synthesized photocatalysts such as Pt/TiO₂ and Pt/TiO₂/RGO. Effects of catalyst type, weight of catalyst utilized, photochemical reactor temperature, retention time by variating the liquid water flow rate, and cocatalyst loading were investigated to increase the concentration of total organic carbon compounds including HCHO and CH₃OH. The effect of titanium dioxide phase ratio (anatase: rutile) presence at the Pt/TiO₂/RGO photocatalysts was also studied. The results revealed that the 0.3 wt.% Pt/TiO₂/RGO₅% photocatalyst which includes a phase ratio of 81:19 for anatase: rutile respectively has the superior photocatalytic activity to other studied photocatalysts. The physciochemical properties of different prepared photocatalytic samples were determined using various characterization techniques. Analyzing the liquid products on gas chromatography, it was found that CH3OH represents the major product whereas HCHO was the minor one. This reactor exhibits a great performance towards CO₂ photocatalytic reduction under the optimized conditions.

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