Electrodeposited Ag nanoparticles on TiO2 nanorods for enhanced UV visible light photoreduction CO2 to CH4

We employed the double-potentiostatic methodology to electrodeposit Ag nanoparticles on oriented single-crystalline rutile TiO2 nanorods synthesized by hydrothermal method. The synthesized composites were used as the photocatalyst to reduce CO2 to CH4 under UV irradiation, and tested by SEM, XRD, TEM, XPS, UV–vis and photoluminescence. Deposition with Ag nanoparticles was observed to enhance the photocatalytic activity (≈1.5–2.64 μmol (gcatal h)−1) up to 5 times with respect to undecorated TiO2 nanorods (≈0.5 μmol (gcatal h)−1). The increase in the CH4 yield was correlated with the surface morphology and structure of TiO2 nanorods.