Key Lab of Advanced Transducers and Intelligent Control System of Ministry of Education, College of Physics and Optoelectronics, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
Nat Commun. 2018 Apr 11;9(1):1397. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03737-4.
Solar-driven water splitting using powdered catalysts is considered as the most economical means for hydrogen generation. However, four-electron-driven oxidation half-reaction showing slow kinetics, accompanying with insufficient light absorption and rapid carrier combination in photocatalysts leads to low solar-to-hydrogen energy conversion efficiency. Here, we report amorphous cobalt phosphide (Co-P)-supported black phosphorus nanosheets employed as photocatalysts can simultaneously address these issues. The nanosheets exhibit robust hydrogen evolution from pure water (pH = 6.8) without bias and hole scavengers, achieving an apparent quantum efficiency of 42.55% at 430 nm and energy conversion efficiency of over 5.4% at 353 K. This photocatalytic activity is attributed to extremely efficient utilization of solar energy (~75% of solar energy) by black phosphorus nanosheets and high-carrier separation efficiency by amorphous Co-P. The hybrid material design realizes efficient solar-to-chemical energy conversion in suspension, demonstrating the potential of black phosphorus-based materials as catalysts for solar hydrogen production.
利用粉末催化剂进行太阳能分解水被认为是最经济的制氢方法。然而，四电子驱动的氧化半反应表现出缓慢的动力学，伴随着光催化剂中光吸收不足和载流子快速复合，导致太阳能到氢能的能量转换效率低下。在这里，我们报告了非晶态磷酸钴（Co-P）负载的黑磷纳米片作为光催化剂，可以同时解决这些问题。纳米片在没有偏压和空穴清除剂的情况下，能够从纯水（pH=6.8）中稳定地进行氢气析出反应，在 430nm 时表现出 42.55%的表观量子效率，在 353K 时的能量转换效率超过 5.4%。这种光催化活性归因于黑磷纳米片对太阳能的高效利用（约 75%的太阳能），以及非晶态 Co-P 实现的高载流子分离效率。这种混合材料的设计实现了悬浮状态下高效的太阳能到化学能的转化，展示了基于黑磷的材料作为太阳能制氢催化剂的潜力。
