Photocatalytic H<sub>2</sub>O Overall Splitting into H<sub>2</sub> Bubbles by Single Atomic Sulfur Vacancy CdS with Spin Polarization Electric Field.

He, Jiari; Hu, Lijun; Shao, Chengtian; Jiang, Shujuan; Sun, Chuanzhi; Song, Shaoqing · ACS Nano · 2021

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Low efficient transfer of photogenerated charge carriers to redox sites along with high surface reaction barrier is a bottleneck problem of photocatalytic H<sub>2</sub>O overall splitting. Here, in the absence of cocatalysts, H<sub>2</sub>O overall splitting has been achieved by single-atomic S vacancy hexagonal CdS with a spin polarization electric field (PEF). Theoretical and experimental results confirm that single-atomic S vacancy-induced spin PEF with opposite direction to the Coulomb field accelerates charge carrier transport dynamics from the bulk phase to surface-redox sites. By systematically tuning the spin PEF intensity with single-atomic S vacancy content, common pristine CdS is converted to a photocatalyst that can efficiently complete H<sub>2</sub>O overall splitting by releasing a great number of H<sub>2</sub> bubbles under natural solar light. This work solves the bottleneck of solar energy conversion in essence by single atom vacancy engineering, which will promote significant photocatalytic performance enhancement for commercialization.