An electron-hole rich dual-site nickel catalyst for efficient photocatalytic overall water splitting

Abstract

Photocatalysis offers an attractive strategy to upgrade H2O to renewable fuel H2. However, current photocatalytic hydrogen production technology often relies on additional sacrificial agents and noble metal cocatalysts, and there are limited photocatalysts possessing overall water splitting performance on their own. Here, we successfully construct an efficient catalytic system to realize overall water splitting, where hole-rich nickel phosphides (Ni2P) with polymeric carbon-oxygen semiconductor (PCOS) is the site for oxygen generation and electron-rich Ni2P with nickel sulfide (NiS) serves as the other site for producing H2. The electron-hole rich Ni2P based photocatalyst exhibits fast kinetics and a low thermodynamic energy barrier for overall water splitting with stoichiometric 2:1 hydrogen to oxygen ratio (150.7 μmol h−1 H2 and 70.2 μmol h−1 O2 produced per 100 mg photocatalyst) in a neutral solution. Density functional theory calculations show that the co-loading in Ni2P and its hybridization with PCOS or NiS can effectively regulate the electronic structures of the surface active sites, alter the reaction pathway, reduce the reaction energy barrier, boost the overall water splitting activity. In comparison with reported literatures, such photocatalyst represents the excellent performance among all reported transition-metal oxides and/or transition-metal sulfides and is even superior to noble metal catalyst.

Tuning the selectivity of benzylamine photo-oxidation with different rhodium modes anchored on BiOIO3

“…43,44 Based on the TRPL and tting results, the lifetimes of BOIO, Rh NP /BOIO, and Rh 1 /BOIO were determined as 1.16, 1.22, and 1.35 ns, respectively (Fig. 3d and Table S4 †), which suggests that the lifetimes of the charge carriers were improved aer anchoring Rh 1 and Rh NP on the BOIO surface, 45 which corresponds to the steady-state PL spectra results. Taken together, the separation and transmission efficiency of the photogenerated carriers could be improved aer respectively anchoring Rh 1 and Rh NP on the BOIO surface.…”

Recent progress of heterogeneous catalysts for transfer hydrogenation under the background of carbon neutrality

“…Efficient and cost-effective usage of solar energy represents an extremely promising technology to solve global issues of energy and environment, thus realizing carbon neutrality. 170–176 Among them, photocatalytic hydrogenation has been regarded as an important strategy to convert solar energy into hydrogen energy and some key chemicals, involving three primary steps: light absorption, charge separation and transfer and subsequent catalytic hydrogenation. 22,23,177–180 However, the current systems still suffer from low conversion efficiency.…”

Photothermal Methane Dry Reforming Catalyzed by Multifunctional (Ni–Cu/CeO2)@SiO2 Catalyst

“…Solar energy is a sustainable resource, and the utilization of solar energy gives the opportunity to sustainably produce energy chemicals. For example, molecules like H 2 O and CO 2 can be photocatalytically converted to high energy-value chemicals H 2 , CO and CH 4 . − Recently, photothermal catalysis, which utilizes solar energy to promote the catalytic performance of thermal-dominant reactions, has had more and more attention paid to it. − Photothermal catalysis is built on traditional thermal catalysis, showing great potential for practical application.…”