Xiao Mu, Zhang Lei, Luo Bin, Lyu Miaoqiang, Wang Zhiliang, Huang Hengming, Wang Songcan, Du Aijun, Wang Lianzhou
Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia.
School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane City, QLD, 4000, Australia.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2020 Apr 27;59(18):7230-7234. doi: 10.1002/anie.202001148. Epub 2020 Mar 9.
Atomic co-catalysts offer high potential to improve the photocatalytic performance, of which the preparation with earth-abundant elements is challenging. Here, a new molten salt method (MSM) is designed to prepare atomic Ni co-catalyst on widely studied TiO nanoparticles. The liquid environment and space confinement effect of the molten salt leads to atomic dispersion of Ni ions on TiO , while the strong polarizing force provided by the molten salt promotes formation of strong Ni-O bonds. Interestingly, Ni atoms are found to facilitate the formation of oxygen vacancies (OV) on TiO during the MSM process, which benefits the charge transfer and hydrogen evolution reaction. The synergy of atomic Ni co-catalyst and OV results in 4-time increase in H evolution rate compared to that of the Ni co-catalyst on TiO prepared by an impregnation method. This work provides a new strategy of controlling atomic co-catalyst together with defects for efficient photocatalytic water splitting.
原子级助催化剂具有提升光催化性能的巨大潜力，然而，采用储量丰富的元素来制备此类助催化剂颇具挑战性。在此，我们设计了一种新型的熔盐法（MSM），用于在广泛研究的TiO纳米颗粒上制备原子级Ni助催化剂。熔盐的液体环境和空间限制效应致使Ni离子在TiO上实现原子级分散，同时熔盐提供的强极化力促进了强Ni-O键的形成。有趣的是，在MSM过程中发现Ni原子有助于在TiO上形成氧空位（OV），这有利于电荷转移和析氢反应。与通过浸渍法制备的TiO上的Ni助催化剂相比，原子级Ni助催化剂与OV的协同作用使析氢速率提高了4倍。这项工作为通过控制原子级助催化剂与缺陷来实现高效光催化水分解提供了一种新策略。
