Interface Engineering of a CoOx/Ta3N5 Photocatalyst for Unprecedented Water Oxidation Performance under Visible‐Light‐Irradiation |
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| Authors: | Shanshan Chen Dr. Shuai Shen Guiji Liu Yu Qi Prof. Fuxiang Zhang Prof. Can Li |
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| Affiliation: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian 116023 (China) http://www.canli.dicp.ac.cn;2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049 (China) |
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| Abstract: | Cocatalysts have been extensively used to promote water oxidation efficiency in solar‐to‐chemical energy conversion, but the influence of interface compatibility between semiconductor and cocatalyst has been rarely addressed. Here we demonstrate a feasible strategy of interface wettability modification to enhance water oxidation efficiency of the state‐of‐the‐art CoOx/Ta3N5 system. When the hydrophobic feature of a Ta3N5 semiconductor was modulated to a hydrophilic one by in situ or ex situ surface coating with a magnesia nanolayer (2–5 nm), the interfacial contact between the hydrophilic CoOx cocatalyst and the modified hydrophilic Ta3N5 semiconductor was greatly improved. Consequently, the visible‐light‐driven photocatalytic oxygen evolution rate of the resulting CoOx/MgO(in)–Ta3N5 photocatalyst is ca. 23 times that of the pristine Ta3N5 sample, with a new record (11.3 %) of apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) under 500–600 nm illumination. |
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| Keywords: | cocatalysts interface engineering photocatalysis tantalum nitride water splitting |
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