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The photoelectrochemical (PEC) oxygen evolution reaction over a photoanode is a promising process for renewable energy. The fascinating properties of graphic carbon nitride (g-CN) in water splitting make the photoelectrode engineering of it for PEC use quite meaningful. In this work, we report the fabrication of the core-shell-structured TiO/g-CN composite film by hydrothermal growth for TiO nanorod arrays and solvothermal growth for the g-CN layer. Herein, TiO is used as an effective electron-transfer layer, and g-CN is used as a visible light absorption layer. Different reaction conditions were investigated in order to obtain the uniform TiO/g-CN nanorod core-shell structure. Outstanding photoelectrochemical performances of the optimized composites were obtained compared to that of pristine TiO or g-CN because the high-quality heterojunction between g-CN and TiO turned out to effectively reduce the recombination of charge carriers and improve the photoelectric conversion ability. Thus, the photocurrent density under visible light of TiO/g-CN reached 80.9 μA cm, which is 21 times that of g-CN under 0.6 V (vs SCE). Finally, a systematic photoelectrocatalytic mechanism of charge carrier migration and the recombination path in the TiO/g-CN nanorod core-shell heterojunction was proposed, which can be considered to be a probable explanation of efficient PEC performance.

Graphitic carbon nitride films werein situgrownviasolvothermal route with significantly improved photoelectrochemical performance.

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Reducing the high charging overpotential of nonaqueous Li−O 2 batteries is very important for their energy storage ability. Herein, we propose a newly photoassisted Li− O 2 battery system, in which a WO 3 nanowires array that grows on carbon textile serves as a photocatalyst on the cathode. Because of its abundant holes excited by visible light, the Li 2 O 2 coated on WO 3 nanowires can be efficiently oxidized during the charging process, resulting in the reduced charging potential and enhanced Li−O 2 battery performance. Notably, the charging potential can still maintain at 3.55 V even after 100 cycles in this photoassisted battery system, which is much lower than that of the dark state (4.4 V). These positive results indicate that the introduction of WO 3 nanowires array photocatalyst provides possibilities in improving the energy conversion efficiency of the Li−O 2 battery.

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