Melamine-doped TiO₂ as a perspective photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution

Abstract The photocatalysts based on titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) doped with melamine were synthesized. The samples of pure and modified TiO 2 were analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis, and room temperature FT-IR, Raman, and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. It was established that modifying TiO 2 with melamine leads to a decrease in the crystallite sizes and an increase in the lattice parameters and molecular unit volume. The stoichiometry of modified TiO 2 worsened due to the appearance of additional vacancies of oxygen in the doped samples. The photocatalytic activity of the prepared catalysts in the reaction of hydrogen production from water under light illumination was studied. The melamine-doped TiO 2 samples showed more than two times higher activity than pure titanium dioxide.