Few-layer BiVO4 nanosheets decorated with SrTiO3: Rh nanoparticles for highly efficient visible-light-driven overall water splitting

Abstract

Two-dimensional nanostructured photocatalyst has attracted intensive attention owing to its high specific surface area, abundant active sites and effective charge migration for water splitting. Herein, few-layer monoclinic BiVO4 nanosheets with exposed (010) facets and abundant oxygen vacancies (VO) are used as photosystem II semiconductor and coupled with Pt-SrTiO3:Rh nanoparticles to construct novel direct Z-scheme photocatalyst for overall water splitting without using any sacrificial agent or external bias. The few-layer BiVO4 nanosheets present strong intimate contact with Pt-SrTiO3:Rh nanoparticles to promote a Z-schematic electron migration, whereby BiVO4 and Pt-SrTiO3:Rh serve as hole-rich and electron-rich reservoir, respectively. The champion Pt-SrTiO3:Rh/BiVO4 delivers robust and durable water splitting performance with stoichiometric ratio H2/O2 evolution activities of 63.2/31.9 μmol h−1 under visible light and relatively high apparent quantum yield of 9.36 % at 400 nm monochromatic light. The present results demonstrate a new strategy to construct highly efficient artificial photosynthesis system for water splitting.