Synthesis and structural analysis of visible light photocatalyst, ZnBiGaO4 for photocatalytic solar hydrogen production

In this paper, we are reporting a novel spinel metal oxide photocatalyst, ZnBiGaO4 for the photocatalytic decomposition of hydrogen sulfide (H,S) to generate hydrogen. ZnBiGaO4 was prepared by two different methods. One is usual solid-state route and another is hydrothermal route, and this is the first time we are reporting ZnBiGaO4 synthesized by this route. The newly prepared ZnBiGaO4 was characterized for its crystal structure and microstructure by using XRD and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), respectively. XRD analysis revealed that the structure of ZnBiGaO4 is cubic spinet structure. The photocatalyst was also characterized by using UV-Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to determine its band gap and was estimated to be 2.8 eV. Our prima facie observations revealed that the formation of single-phase cubic spinel ZnBiGaO4 with significant photocatalytic activity under visible-light irradiations for solar hydrogen generation from H2S. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.