Unique Electronic Structure in a Porous Ga‐In Bimetallic Oxide Nano‐Photocatalyst with Atomically Thin Pore Walls

Abstract

Af acile synthetic route is presented that produces ap orous Ga-In bimetallic oxide nanophotocatalyst with atomically thin pore walls.The material has an unprecedented electronic structure arising from its ultrathin walls.The bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valence band of the material are distributed on two opposite surfaces separated with as mall electrostatic potential difference.T his not only shortens the distance by which the photogenerated charges travel from the sites where they are generated to the sites where they catalyze the reactions,b ut also facilitates charge separations in the material. The porous structure within the walls results in al arge density of exposed surface reactive/catalytic sites.

Porous Ga–In Bimetallic Oxide Nanofibers with Controllable Structures for Ultrasensitive and Selective Detection of Formaldehyde

“…Ga x In 2-x O 3 nanofibers, with different Ga/In atomic ratios, were synthesized by our previous procedures. 31 Typically, for the synthesis of Ga 0.6 In 1.4 O 3 , gallium(III) nitrate hydrate (0.077 g), indium(III) nitrate hydrate (0.163 g) and PVP (0.8 g) were mixed with ethanol (6.6 g) and DMF (2.2 g). The 3:1 weight ratio of ethanol to DMF was rationally chosen as solvent based on the results of our previous electrospinning experiments, 32 as it rendered the solution with appropriate viscosity and conductivity for electrospinning.…”

“…29,30 However, due to the limitation of synthetic approaches, such an ideal architecture is challenging to achieve. Very recently, our group has developed a facile electrospinning technique to synthesize porous Ga x In 2-x O 3 nanofibers (1 ≤ x ≤ 1.8) with atomically thin pore walls, 31 inspiring us to investigate the gas sensing performances of the Ga 2 O 3 −In 2 O 3 system. In this work, we systematically study the phase formation, morphology evolution and band gap tuning of Ga x In 2-x O 3 nanofibers across the composition range (0 ≤ x ≤ 2), as well as their gas sensing behaviors.…”

Synergetic Transformation of Solid Inorganic–Organic Hybrids into Advanced Nanomaterials for Catalytic Water Splitting

“…Furthermore, porous structures not only provide a large surface area but also lower the migration distance of photogenerated carriers. 38 Zn 0.5 Cd 0.5 S porous nanosheets show a higher photocatalytic H 2 evolution performance than Zn 0.5 Cd 0.5 S nanorods (Figure 7c) because Zn 0.5 Cd 0.5 S porous nanosheets possess a favorable band structure, together with excellent charge mobility and plentiful active centers. 18 Moreover, hierarchically structured CdS branched nanowire arrays, which are obtained by synergetic transformation (Figure 7d), show a much higher photocatalytic H 2 evolution rate than CdS nanoparticles and CdS microdendrites (Figure 7e) for three reasons.…”

Shockley Partial Dislocation-Induced Self-Rectified 1D Hydrogen Evolution Photocatalyst

“…As universally accepted, solar harvest efficiency, 4 photogenerated charge separation, and transfer efficiency, 5,6 as well as the photogenerated charge redox capacity, 7 are the major restricted conditions to the eigenphotocatalytic activity of the photocatalyst. As the solar harvest efficiency is connected to the band structure of the photocatalyst directly, 8 and both the photogenerated charge separation efficiency and chargetransfer rate are related to the electron structure, 9,10 plentiful research has been done on the electron structure improvement of the photocatalyst, such as phase junction construction, 11−16 atom or group doping, 17−19 defect introduction, 20−22 and so on. Therefore, the introduction of defects, mostly point defects, such as O vacancies, brings an abnormal valence of the space and provides an additional defect level to decrease the recombination and enhance the redox of the photogenerated charge.…”