No abstract

Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) is a prospective candidate for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water oxidation, but its commercial application is limited due to the serious surface charge recombination. In this work, we propose...

Extracting atmospheric moisture for freshwater production is an appealing way to mitigate the global water crisis. However, the low moisture sorption capacity and high desorption temperature are the major bottlenecks...

The atmospheric water is ubiquitous and abundant, which could be effectively exploited for various applications. However, limited efforts devote to agriculture due to the slowly capture kinetics and highly dehydration temperature. Herein, benefit by a super hygroscopic hydrogel, we integrate a self‐sustainable atmospheric water irrigation system for plant growth at arid land. The hydrogel harvests water from the air during the nighttime, and efficiently releases adsorbed water when the system is exposed to sunlight. The water capture behavior by hydrogel is mainly relying on physisorption, multilayer moistures can be accumulated under weakly Van der Waals force. With the help of hydrophilic surface, the indium hydrogel has a maximum water uptake of up to 5.5 g g−1 at 90% RH. This hydrogel will induce a > 40°C surface temperature under AM 1.5G solar illumination, which is enough for water releasing, making the solar energy driven water‐recycling is possible. At last, the collected water quality meets the international drinking water standard, and then resulting a rapid growth of pea over 6 cm within 8 days.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Understanding the interfacial interaction of a nanostructure heterojunction and improving the efficiency of photoanodes are of great significance to develop photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Herein, taking BiVO4 and Bi2S3 as model materials, we investigate the modulation effect of a chemical bond at the heterojunction interface on the energy band structure. A BiVO4/Bi2S3 heterojunction is favorably constructed by a convenient chemical technique of successive ionic layer absorption and reaction (SILAR) method. We find that a Bi–O chemical bond is reasonably introduced at the BiVO4 and Bi2S3 interface, which is different from the physical contact heterojunction of BiVO4/Bi2S3(DC). Experimental and theoretical studies reveal that the Bi–O bond at the heterojunction interface distinctly downshifts the Fermi level of the BiVO4 surface and reverses the bending direction of the interfacial band from the former type II structure to a direct Z-scheme structure. Due to the excellent charge separation efficiency and high redox potential, the heterojunction of BiVO4/Bi2S3 (SILAR) exhibits a significantly raised photocurrent density of 2.71 mA cm–2 at 1.23 VRHE, 11.29 times higher than that of BiVO4/Bi2S3(DC). This study emphasizes the modulation effect of interfacial chemical bonds in the fabrication of heterojunctions and provides a reference to construct high-activity photoanodes for PEC water splitting.