Aligning potential differences within carbon nitride based photocatalysis for efficient solar energy harvesting

Authors

Jinqiang Zhang, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Yunguo Li
Xiaoli Zhao, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Liang Wang
Haijun Chen
Shuaijun Wang, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Xinyuan Xu, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Lei Shi
Laichang Zhang, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Yuezhao Zhu
Huayang Zhang
Yazi Liu
Gareth Nealon
Shu Zhang
Mingbo Wu
Shaobin Wang
Hongqi Sun, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow

Author Identifier

L.C. Zhang

ORCID : 0000-0003-0661-2051

Hongqi Sun

ORCID : 0000-0003-0907-5626

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Nano Energy

Volume

89

Publisher

Elsevier

School

School of Engineering

RAS ID

38775

Funders

ECU Vice-Chancellor's Professional Research Fellowship Australian Research Council National Natural Science Foundation of China

Grant Number

ARC Number : DP170104264, DP190103548, LE120100026

Grant Link

http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP170104264 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190103548

Comments

Zhang, J., Li, Y., Zhao, X., Wang, L., Chen, H., Wang, S., . . . Sun, H. (2021). Aligning potential differences within carbon nitride based photocatalysis for efficient solar energy harvesting. Nano Energy, 89(Part A), article 106357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2021.106357

Abstract

Photocatalysis is essentially triggered by the photoinduced charge carriers, which are then oriented for the targeted redox reactions. However, the effects of intrinsic driving forces on charge carriers and their resulting photocatalytic throughputs remain unclear. Herein, we focus on two main potential differences (PDs), e.g., intralayer PD (IPD) within two-dimensional carbon nitride hybrids, and band PD (BPD) between the band positions of a semiconductor and the redox potentials of reactants that can actuate charge carriers for photocatalysis. In situ experiments and theoretical computations identify and differentiate the roles of the two PDs on the separation, transportation and catalytic utilization of charge carriers. It is noteworthy that the enhancement from PDs alignment in this work is higher than other physiochemical modifications (e.g., mass transfer and polymerization degree) for photocatalysis. This study may offer a guiding principle for aligning a photocatalyst with target reactions for energy conversion and chemical synthesis.

DOI

10.1016/j.nanoen.2021.106357

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