The Influence of the Preparing Method of a Ag/Ga2O3 Catalyst on its Activity for Photocatalytic Reduction of CO2 with Water

We have prepared silver-loaded gallium oxide (Ag/Ga2O3) photocatalysts by the solution plasma method (SPM) and impregnation method (imp), and investigate the effects of the chemical states and the size of the Ag nanoparticles on their photocatalytic activities. The photocatalytic reduction of CO2 with water proceeds over all the Ag/Ga2O3 photocatalysts to produce CO, however the CO production rates decrease during photocatalytic reaction. Measurements of UV-VIS diffuse reflectance spectra, XANES spectra and TEM images reveal the followings: the Ag oxide nanoparticles in the as-prepared Ag/Ga2O3 (imp) samples exist and their size distribution is wide from 5 to 10 nm. They become a lot of metallic nanoparticles by UV light-irradiation, and become larger particles with the size of ca. 20 nm during the photocatalytic reaction. On the other hand, the Ag nanoparticles in the as-prepared Ag/Ga2O3 (SPM) samples are metallic with the size of less than 10 nm. The size does not change under UV light irradiation, while become larger particles during the photocatalytic reaction as similar to the case of the Ag/Ga2O3 (imp) samples. Such small metallic Ag nanoparticles with the size of 5-10 nm are suitable for CO production. However, they aggregate during the reaction for 5 h to degrade the photocatalytic activity.