Photocatalytic Activity For Water Research Articles

Engineering Semi-Reversed Quantum Well Photocatalysts for Highly-Efficient Solar-to-Fuels Conversion.

Semiconductor quantum wells (QWs) exhibit high charge-utilization efficiency for light-emitting applications due to their strong charge confinement effect. Inspired by this effect, herein, this work proposes a new idea to significantly improve the photo-generated charge separation for attaining a highly-efficient solar-to-fuels conversion process through "semi-reversing" the conventional QWs to confine only the photo-generated electrons. This electron confinement-improved charge separation is implemented in the well-designed model of the CdS/TiO2/CdS semi-reversed QW (SRQW) structure. The latter is fabricated by selectively assembling CdS quantum dots (QDs) onto the {101} facets (ultra-thin edge regions) of the TiO2 nanosheets (NSs). Upon light excitation, the photo-generated electrons of SRQW can be confined on the TiO2-{101} facets in the vicinity of the CdS/TiO2 hetero-interface. Thereby, the continuous multi-electron injection to the adsorbed reactants on the interfacial active-sites is significantly accelerated. Thus, the CdS/TiO2/CdS SRQW exhibits ≈35.7 and ≈56.0-fold enhancements on the photocatalytic activities for water and CO2 reduction, respectively, compared to those of pure TiO2. Correspondingly, its CH4-product selectivity is increased by ≈180%. This work provides a novel charge separation mechanism, which is of great importance for the design of the next-generation quantum-sized photocatalysts for solar-to-fuels conversion.

Synthesis and Characterization of Low-Dimensional Structure Photocatalyst BaGeGa<sub>6</sub>O<sub>12</sub>

Low-dimensional structure compounds as layered perovskite shows high photocatalytic activity in water splitting. In this study, we investigated that synthesis and characterization of photocatalytic activity of BaGeGa6O12 with a one-dimensional structure. BaGeGa6O12 with loading 0.3wt% RuO2 showed a photocatalytic activity for water splitting into H2 (70.6 μ mol / h) and O2 (28.1 μ mol / h).

ChemInform Abstract: Synthesis and Photocatalytic Property of Layered Perovskite Tantalates, RbLnTa2O7 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd, and Sm).

The first example of an active layered tantalate photocatalyst containing partly filled lanthanide 4f shell is reported. A single phase of layered perovskite tantalates, RbLnTa2O7, could be obtained with Ln = La, Pr, Nd, and Sm; the ionic radii of these trivalent cations are required to be larger than 0.126 nm for constructing a perovskite slab. Under UV irradiation from a high-pressure Hg lamp, these layered tantalates demonstrated the photocatalytic activity for water splitting into stoichiometric H2/O2 mixtures even without loading metal catalysts. The rates of H2 and O2 evolutions were found to be strongly dependent on the lanthanoids, increasing in the sequence of La ≑ Pr ≪ Sm < Nd. The maximum rate of H2 evolution observed over RbNdTa2O7 reached 47.0 μmol/h. The absorption spectrum of RbNdTa2O7 consists of the internal 4f transitions in the visible region and a broad band overlapping the band-gap transition in the UV region. The latter band indicates that a possible excitation process including the ...