A Surface Reconstruction Route for Increasingly Improved Photocatalytic HO Production Using SrBiTaOCl

Overview

Journal Chem Sci

Publisher Royal Society of Chemistry

Specialty Chemistry

Date 2024 Sep 27

PMID 39328189

Authors

Maqsuma Banoo

Arjun Kumar Sah

Raj Sekhar Roy

Komalpreet Kaur

Bramhaiah Kommula

Dirtha Sanyal

Ujjal K Gautam

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Photocatalytic hydrogen peroxide (HO) generation is attractive for the chemical industry and energy production. However, photocatalysts generally deteriorate significantly during use to limit their application. Here we present highly active SrBiTaOCl single-crystal nanoplates for conversion of O to HO using ambient air with a production rate of ∼3 mmol h g (maximum 17.5% photon conversion). Importantly, SrBiTaOCl is not only stable during 30 days of HO production but also gets consistently activated to increase the HO yield by >244%, unlike any other catalyst for HO production. Multi-pronged characterization confirms that the synergistic increase in activity originates from surface reconstruction by oxygen-deficient vacancy associate formation that improves (i) surface oxygen adsorption, (ii) sunlight harvesting, and (iii) charge-transfer from the low-valent metal atoms surrounding oxygen vacancies to reactants. The study establishes the prospects of rational defect engineering for realizing non-degrading photocatalysts for realistic HO production.

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