Hydrovoltaic effect-enhanced photocatalysis by polyacrylic acid/cobaltous oxide–nitrogen doped carbon system for efficient photocatalytic water splitting
Xu Xin, Youzi Zhang, Ruiling Wang, Yijin Wang, Peng Guo, Xuanhua Li
Abstract
Abstract Severe carrier recombination and the slow kinetics of water splitting for photocatalysts hamper their efficient application. Herein, we propose a hydrovoltaic effect-enhanced photocatalytic system in which polyacrylic acid (PAA) and cobaltous oxide (CoO)–nitrogen doped carbon (NC) achieve an enhanced hydrovoltaic effect and CoO–NC acts as a photocatalyst to generate H 2 and H 2 O 2 products simultaneously. In this system, called PAA/CoO–NC, the Schottky barrier height between CoO and the NC interface decreases by 33% due to the hydrovoltaic effect. Moreover, the hydrovoltaic effect induced by H + carrier diffusion in the system generates a strong interaction between H + ions and the reaction centers of PAA/CoO–NC, improving the kinetics of water splitting in electron transport and species reaction. PAA/CoO–NC exhibits excellent photocatalytic performance, with H 2 and H 2 O 2 production rates of 48.4 and 20.4 mmol g −1 h −1 , respectively, paving a new way for efficient photocatalyst system construction.