A review on photocatalytic systems capable of synchronously utilizing photogenerated electrons and holes

With the continuous progress and development of current industrial civilization,energy crisis and envi-ronmental pollution are serious problems that threaten human beings need to be solved.Photocatalytic technolo-gies that can use clean solar light energy to manufacture clean H2 fuel and high value chemicals provide a feasibility to solve the above problem.However,traditional photo-catalytic water splitting mainly focused on the utilization of photogenerated electrons to produce H_(2) which leads to the waste of the holes.It is vital to develop photocatalysts capable of synchronously utilizing photogenerated elec-trons and holes for the future practical application.In this paper,the latest progress of photocatalytic system with collaborative photooxidation-reduction application has been summarized,and water splitting for H_(2) production combining different organic synchronous reaction process has been clarified.Finally,the prospect of photocatalysts capable of synchronously utilizing photogenerated elec-trons and holes are proposed.

Carbon hollow spheres as cocatalyst of Cu-doped TiO_(2)nanoparticles for improved photocatalytic H_(2)generation

The reasonable employment of cocatalyst in photocatalysis can effectively promote the photocatalytic H_(2)production activity.In this study,carbon hollow spheres(C),as a good conductive nonmetallic material,have been utilized as a novel cocatalyst and a matrix for loading the Cu-doped-TiO_(2)nanoparticles by a successive hydrother-mal method and metal molten salt method.The Cu-doped-TiO_(2)nanoparticles were tightly anchored on the surface of carbon hollow sphere to form a zero-dimensional/three dimensional(0D/3D)Cu-doped-TiO2/C heterojunction.The optimal Cu-doped-TiO_(2)/C heterojunction demon-strated greatly enhanced photocatalytic H_(2) generation activity(14.4 mmol·g^(-1)·h^(-1))compared with TiO_(2)(0.33 mmol·g^(-1)·h^(-1))and TiO_(2)/C(0.7 mmol·g^(-1)·h^(-1)).The performance improvement was mainly due to the syner-gistic effect of carbon hollow sphere cocatalyst and Cu-doping,the Cu-doping in TiO_(2)nanoparticles can minimize charge recombination and enhance the available photoex-cited electrons,while the 3D carbon hollow spheres can act as electron traps to accelerate the charge separation and offer abundant active sites for solar water splitting reaction.