Abstract:
Zeolites due to their porous nature are called molecular sieves and have a lot of industrial
applications. They are microporous, mesoporous and nanoporous materials which attract
much attention due to their unique structural properties. Sodiumaluminosilicate decorated
with Ni and Pd is synthesized by hydrothermal treatment at 1200 C for 12 hrs. Molar ratio
of the mixture, alkalinity, aging conditions, crystallization temperature and reaction time
are important factors for the synthesis of mesoporous sodiumaluminosilicate. The
material is characterized by Diffused reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), Fourier transform
infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Thermogravimetric analysis
(TG), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS),
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and
Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). The UV-visible spectroscopy shows the absorbance
edge at 260 nm and the band gap is 3.6 V calculated from tauc plot showing the efficient
capturing of photons in UV and Vis region to generate electron and holes efficiently. IR
bands at 670, 990, 1051, 1660 and 3375 cm-1 indicating Al-O bending vibration, Si-OSi
asymmetric stretching vibration, Al-O-Si asymmetric stretching vibration, H-O-H
stretching vibration and OH groups of Si-OH stretching vibration respectively. XRD
shows the peaks of support (aluminosilicate) only and the metal peaks are not detectable
because of their addition in less amount. TGA shows no loss in mass. SEM/EDS shows
layered structure having canals, pores and voids in between the layers with homogenously
distributed nickel and palladium nanoparticles. TEM shows the presence of channels,
pores and voids at various resolutions. The BET surface area is 875.178 m2/g and
Langmuir surface area is 1230.638 m2/g. In this thesis, two aims are highlighted which
are hydrogen storage and photoelectrochemical studies for water splitting. Due to its
porous framework, hydrogen can be adsorbing in the voids of sodium aluminosilicate
where metals are incorporated. The water splitting results are analyzed for
Chronoamperometry (CA) and water stability are studied.
