Two-dimensional gersiloxenes with tunable bandgap for photocatalytic H2 evolution and CO2 photoreduction to CO

Abstract

The discovery of graphene and graphene-like two-dimensional materials has brought fresh vitality to the field of photocatalysis. Bandgap engineering has always been an effective way to make semiconductors more suitable for specific applications such as photocatalysis and optoelectronics. Achieving control over the bandgap helps to improve the light absorption capacity of the semiconductor materials, thereby improving the photocatalytic performance. This work reports two-dimensional −H/−OH terminal-substituted siligenes (gersiloxenes) with tunable bandgap. All gersiloxenes are direct-gap semiconductors and have wide range of light absorption and suitable band positions for light driven water reduction into H 2 , and CO 2 reduction to CO under mild conditions. The gersiloxene with the best performance can provide a maximum CO production of 6.91 mmol g −1 h −1 , and a high apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of 5.95% at 420 nm. This work may open up new insights into the discovery, research and application of new two-dimensional materials in photocatalysis.

POM‐Incorporated CoO Nanowires for Enhanced Photocatalytic Syngas Production from CO2

“…An immense amount of materials has been applied to catalyze the sunlight‐driven CO 2 reduction or H 2 evolution, including transition‐metal compounds, carbonaceous materials, porphyrin‐contained MOFs, and so on . Among them, the transition‐metal compounds exhibit remarkable performance.…”

“…[10,11] An immense amount of materials has been applied to catalyze the sunlight-driven CO 2 reduction or H 2 evolution, including transition-metal compounds, carbonaceous materials, porphyrin-contained MOFs, and so on. [12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Among them, the transition-metal compounds exhibit remarkable performance. Notably, we found that cobalt compounds demonstrate promising performance towards photocatalysis for its abundance and high performance.…”

2D Nanomaterials for Effective Energy Scavenging

“…Scientists are now moving to exploit these intriguing nanomaterials for real-life applications. For energy scavenging applications, 2D nanomaterials are being used in (i) solar energy scavenging such as photovoltaic cells [ 6 ], perovskites [ 7 ], photocatalysis [ 8 ]; (ii) mechanical energy scavenging such as triboelectric [ 9 ] and piezoelectric devices [ 10 ]; (iii) thermal energy scavenging such as thermoelectric [ 11 ] and pyroelectric systems [ 12 ]; and (iv) chemical energy scavenging such as osmotic power generation [ 13 ]. 2D nanomaterial-based nanogenerators are potentially an attractive option for large-scale power generation from sustainable sources such as wind power, ocean waves, and rolling wheels [ 14 ].…”

Novel Carboxy-Functionalized PVP-CdS Nanopopcorns with Homojunctions for Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

“…What's more, the band structure engineering of the photocatalysts, i.e. narrowing the bandgap to increase the visible light harvesting, the more positive shift of valence band (VB) energy to promotes easy oxidation of H2O to O2 and more negative conduction band (CB) energy to facilitate the photoreduction ability, is another key indicator for evaluating photocatalysts 22,23 . In this work, a novel carboxy-functionalized PVP-CdS nanopopcorns with hexagonal wurtzite (WZ)-cubic zinc blende (ZB) homojunction (named as MP-CdS) were synthesized via gamma-ray radiation-induced reduction and subsequent alkaline treatment under ambient conditions.…”