Enhanced Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalytic Overall Splitting of Pure Water in a Porous Microreactor.

Photocatalytic overall splitting of pure water (HO) without sacrificial reagent to hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) holds a great potential for achieving carbon neutrality. Herein, by anchoring cobalt sulfide (CoS) as cocatalyst and cadmium sulfide (CdS) as light absorber to channel wall of a porous polymer microreactor (PP12), continuous violent H and O bubbling productions from photocatalytic overall splitting of pure HO without sacrificial reagent is achieved, with H and O production rates as high as 4.41 and 2.20 mmol h g respectively. These are significantly enhanced than those in the widely used stirred tank-type reactor in which no O is produced and H production rate is only 0.004 mmol h g . Besides improved charge separation and interaction of HO with photocatalyst in PP12, bonding interaction of CoS with PP12 creates abundant catalytic active sites for simultaneous productions of H and O, thus leading to the significantly enhanced H and O bubbling productions in PP12. This offers a new strategy to enhance photocatalytic overall splitting of pure HO without sacrificial reagent.