Hydrogen-substituted graphdiyne encapsulated cuprous oxide photocathode for efficient and stable photoelectrochemical water reduction.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36182949.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-33445-z and PMC identifier 9526745.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an appealing approach for "green" hydrogen generation. The natural p-type semiconductor of Cu2O is one of the most promising photocathode candidates for direct hydrogen generation. However, the Cu2O-based photocathodes still suffer severe self-photo-corrosion and fast surface electron-hole recombination issues. Herein, we propose a facile in-situ encapsulation strategy to protect Cu2O with hydrogen-substituted graphdiyne (HsGDY) and promote water reduction performance. The HsGDY encapsulated Cu2O nanowires (HsGDY@Cu2O NWs) photocathode demonstrates a high photocurrent density of -12.88 mA cm-2 at 0 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode under 1 sun illumination, approaching to the theoretical value of Cu2O. The HsGDY@Cu2O NWs photocathode as well as presents excellent stability and contributes an impressive hydrogen generation rate of 218.2 ± 11.3 μmol h-1cm-2, which value has been further magnified to 861.1 ± 24.8 μmol h-1cm-2 under illumination of concentrated solar light. The in-situ encapsulation strategy opens an avenue for rational design photocathodes for efficient and stable PEC water reduction.