Process Safety and Environmental Protection 9 4 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 11–17 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Process Safety and Environmental Protection journal h om ep age: www.elsevier.com/locate/ps ep Mesoporous simonkolleite–TiO 2 nanostructured composite for simultaneous photocatalytic hydrogen production and dye decontamination Mohamed I. Badawy a , Mohamed E.M. Ali a,* , Montaser Y. Ghaly b,c , Mohamed A. El-Missiry c a Water Pollution Research Department, Environmental Sciences Division, National Research Centre (NRC), Egypt b Chemical Engineering and Pilot Plant Department, Energy Group, Centre of Excellence, National Research Centre (NRC), Egypt c Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 28 January 2014 Received in revised form 12 November 2014 Accepted 1 December 2014 Available online 9 December 2014 Keywords: Hydrogen production Photocatalytic Dye degradation Renewable energy Photocatalyst Mesoporous simonkolleite–TiO 2 a b s t r a c t In the present work, mesoporous simonkolleite–TiO 2 composite was prepared with sol–gel method. The composite photocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and Raman spectroscopy. Also, surface area and parti- cle size were analyzed using BET equation. The photocatalytic hydrogen production with simultaneous decolorization of Remazole Red (F3B) dye was investigated over TiO 2 and simonkolleite–TiO 2 composite under UV–vis light irradiation. It was worthy to be noted that the rate of hydrogen production over simonkolleite–TiO 2 is higher that produced over TiO 2 . The maximum amount of photocatalytic-produced hydrogen was 2.1 mmol and 3.3 mmol within 240 min using TiO 2 and simonkolleite–TiO 2 composite, respectively. The specific production rate of hydrogen from photocatalytic conversion of dye was calculated. Improvement of apparent quantum yield (22.07%) after 5 h was achieved upon addition of simonkolleite to TiO 2 . This high apparent quantum yield proves that the system pro- posed in this study could be a hopeful approach toward using sunlight energy as outlook energy source. The obtained results suggested that a new process for H 2 production from wastewater could be achieved. The process also provides a method for degradation of organic pollutants with simultaneous H 2 production. © 2014 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Hydrogen has become a renewable energy alternative that could diminish environmental pollution. Upon its burning, it produces clean energy without pollution and produces no greenhouse gases (Ramamurthi et al., 2000). Recently, pho- tocatalytic reactions over semiconductor surfaces had been used for water/air purification (Herrmann, 1999; Mills and Le ∗ Corresponding author at: Water Pollution Research Department, Environmental Sciences Division, National Research Centre (NRC), P.O. Box 12311, Egypt. Tel.: +20 233371479; fax: +20 233371479. E-mail address: alienv81@yahoo.com (M.E.M. Ali). Hunte, 1997; Carp et al., 2004) as well as for renewable hydro- gen production (Linsebigler et al., 1995; Frank and Bard, 1977). Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) photocatalysis becomes an effective way for the mineralization of organic pollutants in water and wastewater (Borgarello et al., 1981; Brugger et al., 1981), as well as for direct conversion and storage of solar energy (Fujishima and Honda, 1972; Bolton, 1996; Fujishima et al., 2000; Ikeda et al., 2006; Ni et al., 2007). The effectiveness of simultaneous http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2014.12.001 0957-5820/© 2014 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.