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A bio-inspired strategy for enhanced hydrogen evolution: carbonate ions as hole vehicles to promote carrier
Tiening Tan1, Jingjing Xie, Wenxuan Wang
1State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China. crystalplane413@163.com zyfu@whut.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Natural photosynthesis involves a subtle electron transfer mechanism in which freely-moving electron transfer intermediates (plastoquinone and plastocyanin) are capable of effectively separating the photo-generated carriers, and therefore, it has high quantum efficiency. Inspired by this mechanism, in this study, carbonate (CO32-) ions were employed as hole vehicles to promote photo-generated carrier separation, and greatly improved the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity of K4Nb6O17 nanosheets. The hydrogen evolution rate at the optimal concentration of CO32- ions reached 2018 μmol h-1 g-1, which was 16.3 times that of the blank sample (124 μmol h-1 g-1). This marked enhancement was based on the transfer of holes from the photocatalyst to the sacrificial reagent (methanol) via CO32- ions; this process is faster than direct hole transfer between the photocatalyst and sacrificial reagent. This bio-inspired strategy provides a facile and cost-effective approach to improve the solar-to-fuel conversion efficiency of photocatalysts.
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