Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution from Water Splitting on Ta₂O₅/SrZrO₃ Heterostructures Decorated with Cu_xO/RuO₂ Cocatalysts

Abstract

Photocatalytic H2 generation by water splitting is a promising alternative for producing renewable fuels. This work synthesized a new type of Ta2O5/SrZrO3 heterostructure with Ru and Cu (RuO2/Cu x O/Ta2O5/SrZrO3) using solid-state chemistry methods to achieve a high H2 production of 5164 μmol g–1 h–1 under simulated solar light, 39 times higher than that produced using SrZrO3. The heterostructure performance is compared with other Ta2O5/SrZrO3 heterostructure compositions loaded with RuO2, Cu x O, or Pt. Cu x O is used to showcase the usage of less costly cocatalysts to produce H2. The photocatalytic activity toward H2 by the RuO2/Cu x O/Ta2O5/SrZrO3 heterostructure remains the highest, followed by RuO2/Ta2O5/SrZrO3 > Cu x O/Ta2O5/SrZrO3 > Pt/Ta2O5/SrZrO3 > Ta2O5/SrZrO3 > SrZrO3. Band gap tunability and high optical absorbance in the visible region are more prominent for the heterostructures containing cocatalysts (RuO2 or Cu x O) and are even higher for the binary catalyst (RuO2/Cu x O). The presence of the binary catalyst is observed to impact the charge carrier transport in Ta2O5/SrZrO3, improving the solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency. The results represent a valuable contribution to the design of SrZrO3-based heterostructures for photocatalytic H2 production by solar water splitting.

Enhanced Solar‐Photo(Electro)catalysis of Microwave‐Hydrothermal Synthesized BiVO4, ms‐BiVO4/Reduced Graphene Oxide/Ag3PO4 Nanohybrid: Crystalline Phase‐Dependent Interfacial Charge Carrier Dynamics

“…The significant increase in the diffusion length of the ms-BiVO 4 /RGO/Ag 3 PO 4 nanohybrid photoanode further confirms the effective carrier separation. [65] In contrast, the carrier diffusion lengths of the photoanodes exhibit a trend similar to the hole diffusion length and minority lifetime obtained from the PL data of the powder samples (shown in Figure 8c) implying better charge separation and lower charge transfer resistance, responsible for the enhanced PEC performance of the ms-BiVO 4 /RGO/ Ag 3 PO 4 nanohybrid photoanode for water splitting. The detailed parameters of the PEC performance of the BiVO 4 photoanodes are tabulated in Table 1 and well compared to previous BiVO 4 heterojunction based studies as listed in Table 2.…”

High throughput discovery of ternary Cu–Fe–Ru alloy catalysts for photo-driven hydrogen production

“…41 Most recently, Cu x O/RuO 2 have been used as decorating co-catalysts on heterostructures for water splitting photocatalytic applications. 42 Despite bulk immiscibility, prior experiments have suggested the bimetallic could be active for HER with our in situ synthesized colloidal photo-driven system. 36 Fe was chosen based on its consistent NP formation and high HER activity in prior studies.…”

Overcoming Voltage Losses in Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries Using WO3 as a Positive Electrode

“…The electron binding energies were referenced to carbon C 1s at 284.8 eV. High‐resolution spectra were fitted using previously fitting protocols[ 20 , 21 ] (Lorentzian‐Gaussian line fitting and Shirley type) to compensate for the background.…”