Measured effects of light intensity and catalyst concentration on photocatalytic hydrogen and oxygen production with zinc sulfide suspensions

In this paper, an experimental study is performed for hydrogen and oxygen production by new photo-catalytic and electro-catalytic water splitting systems. An effective method for hydrogen production by solar energy without consumption of additional reactants is a hybrid system which combines photo-chemical and electro-catalytic reactions. Experiments are performed in batch and dual cell quasi-steady operation with different light intensities and zinc sulfide photo-catalyst concentrations. The photo-reactor in batch operation achieves 6 mL h−1 of hydrogen production with 3% w/v of catalyst. The hydrogen production rate corresponds to a quantum efficiency of 75% as measured through illumination of zinc sulfide suspensions in a dual cell reactor.