Journal of Catalysis
Journal of Catalysis
5 years ago

Novel dodecahedron BiVO4:YVO4 solid solution with enhanced charge separation on adjacent exposed facets for highly efficient overall water splitting

Novel dodecahedron BiVO4:YVO4 solid solution with enhanced charge separation on adjacent exposed facets for highly efficient overall water splitting
BiVO4, an excellent photocatalyst for oxygen production, has been studied extensively. Many attempts have been made to change the conduction band of BiVO4 to satisfy the H2O/H2 potential. In this paper, yttrium is introduced to adjust the energy band structure of BiVO4. A novel BiVO4:YVO4 solid solution with a new dodecahedron shape exposing two facets, {101} and {100}, is successfully prepared. On doping with Y, the crystal system of BiVO4 changes from monoclinic to tetragonal. The improved symmetry of the crystal system makes the (100) and (010) of {100} facets entirely identical, resulting in dodecahedron tetragonal Bi x Y1− x VO4. The energy levels of the two facets show slight nonconformity. So the photogenerated electrons and holes can be separated efficiently between the adjacent exposed facets to produce H2 and O2, respectively. Through the study of photocatalytic performance, Bi x Y1− x VO4 with Pt as co-catalyst shows highly efficient photocatalytic activity and can split pure water at the stoichiometric ratio.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0021951717301513

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.