0.68% of solar-to-hydrogen efficiency and super-high photostability: Panel H2O-to-H2 conversion based on a novel organic-inorganic membrane catalyst

Abstract

Solar-driven flat-panel H2O-to-H2 (HTH) conversion is an important technology for value-added solar fuel production. However, most frequently used particulate photocatalysts are hard to achieve stable photocatalysis in flat-panel reaction module due to the influence of mechanical shear force by fluid and generated bubbles. Constructing stable photocatalytic membrane can effectively address the critical issues of particulate photocatalysts. Herein, a highly active CdS@SiO2-Pt composite with rapid CdS-to-Pt electron-transfer kinetics and restrained photoexciton recombination kinetics was prepared to process into an organic-inorganic membrane by compounding with organic ferroelectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). This organic-inorganic synergistically interface networked membrane catalyst displays super-high photostability and excellent operability, dramatically overcoming the drawback of inorganic particulate catalysts, and achieving remarkable simulated sunlight (SSL)-driven alkaline (pH = 14.0) HTH activity (213.48 mmol∙m-2∙h-1) with 0.68% of solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency. No obvious variation in its appearance and micromorphology was observed even being recycled for 50-times, which considerably outperforms the existing membrane photocatalysts. Subsequently, a homemade panel reaction system was fabricated to achieve alkaline water-splitting to obtain a 0.05% of STH efficiency under SSL-irradiation. This study opens up a new prospect for practical application of panel photocatalytic hydrogen production with organic-inorganic interface networked membrane technology.