Development and performance of bench-scale reactor for the photocatalytic generation of hydrogen

In this study, a new novel bench-scale (5 L) tubular photocatalytic reactor was developed and its feasibility studies were conducted for optimizing the operating variables, namely concentration of sulfide ion, concentration of sulfite ion, pH, catalyst concentration, lamp power, volume of wastewater and recycle flow rates at batch recycle mode for the generation of hydrogen from aqueous sodium sulfide using CdS–ZnS/TiO2 core–shell NPs (nanoparticles). The maximum H2 generation was found at 0.05 M concentration of sulfide ion, 0.2 M concentration of sulfite ion, pH 11.3, 0.5 g/L catalyst concentration and recycle flow rate of 18 L/h. Reusability studies were conducted for analyzing stability of photocatalyst. The results showed that the generation of hydrogen depends on light intensity, photoreactor used, nature of photocatalysts and the operating conditions.