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Effects of Bi-dopant and co-catalysts upon hole surface trapping on La2Ti2O7 nanosheet photocatalysts in overall solar water splitting

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Abstract

Pristine and Bi-doped lanthanum titanium oxide (La2Ti2O7) nanosheets have been synthesized as photocatalysts for overall solar water splitting. The surface hole trap is a critical factor that limits the photocatalytic activity of pristine La2Ti2O7. Deposition of cobalt phosphate (Co-Pi) and platinum (Pt) nanoparticles on La2Ti2O7 cannot remove the surface traps although they are essential for enabling the oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions. It is interesting that doping bismuth (Bi) into La2Ti2O7 nanosheets has eliminated the surface traps due to surface enrichment of Bi. The Co-Pi/Bi-La2Ti2O7/Pt nanosheets exhibit increasing photocatalytic activity toward overall water splitting with increasing the Bi-dopant level up to 5 at.%. Further increasing the Bi-dopant level leads to the formation of localized states above the valence band, leading to the lifetime reduction of photogenerated charge-carriers, and jeopardizing the photocatalytic activity. This work proposes an effective strategy to address the surface trapping and surface catalysis issues in the nanostructured metal oxide photocatalysts.

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Acknowledgements

This project is partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51972010 and 51472013), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Youth Fund, Nos. BK20190640 and BK20190641), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2019XKQYMS11). We thank the Open Sharing Fund for the large-scale instruments and equipment of China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT), and the high-performance computing platform of Beihang University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Physics, Jiangsu Province Engineering Laboratory of High Efficient Energy Storage Technology and Equipment, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Xiaoyan Cai & Liang Mao

  2. School of Physics, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Xiaoyan Cai, Liang Mao & Junying Zhang

  3. The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (SANKEN), Osaka University, Mihogaoka 8-1, Ibaraki, Osaka, 567-0047, Japan

    Mamoru Fujitsuka & Tetsuro Majima

  4. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506-6106, USA

    Sujan Kasani

  5. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, 01003-9303, USA

    Nianqiang Wu

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  1. Xiaoyan Cai
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Correspondence to Junying Zhang.

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Effects of Bi-dopant and co-catalysts upon hole surface trapping on La2Ti2O7 nanosheet photocatalysts in overall solar water splitting

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Cai, X., Mao, L., Fujitsuka, M. et al. Effects of Bi-dopant and co-catalysts upon hole surface trapping on La2Ti2O7 nanosheet photocatalysts in overall solar water splitting. Nano Res. 15, 438–445 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3498-5

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