Recently, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics researcher Li Can and other independent research and development of space-resolved surface photovoltage spectroscopy and Kelvin probe imaging system to study the role of co-catalyst in the process of solar fuel conversion and found that nano-scale catalyst can be Which can effectively control the direction and size of the built-in electric field of the photocatalytic material, and the built-in electric field up to 2.5kV / cm is formed at the interface, and the localized photovoltage value can be enhanced by 80 times. This study reveals that the co-catalyst enhanced photocatalysis Catalytic mechanism of the new mechanism, published in the "Nano Letters" (Nano Letters).
Catalytic catalyst is the use of photocatalytic and photoelectric catalytic conversion of solar energy to chemical energy in the process of an important part of the vast majority of the photocatalytic system need to introduce cocatalyst (cocatalyst) to enhance the photocatalytic activity, the catalyst in the conversion process Is one of the reasons that the photocatalytic process of photogenerated charge as an important reaction intermediate involved in the vast majority of the catalytic reaction element steps, so the improvement of photocatalytic performance can not be simply attributable to the Catalyzed by the catalytic reaction of the surface kinetics of the research team using independent research and development of space-resolved surface photovoltage spectroscopy and Kelvin probe imaging system, found in BiVO4 as the representative of the model system on the deposition of cocatalyst, the cocatalyst and photocatalytic materials The direction of the built-in electric field in the region where the co-catalyst is not carried out is reversed and the strength is improved.The experimental data and numerical simulation results show that the introduction of the co-catalyst effectively increases the space The size of the charge layer is changed from the original two oppositely built-in electric fields The results show that the introduction of co-catalyst has the effect of increasing the built-in electric field.The surface photoelectrical imaging studies show that the introduction of co-catalyst at the interface is the highest (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., JPCL), which embodies the systematic work of photogenerated imaging studies and reveals that the electrons and holes are effectively separated from each other by an electric field of 2.5 kV / cm. The Decisive Role of Built - in Electric Field in the Construction of Efficient Solar Fuel.
The research work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology 973 project, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the strategic pilot science and technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Energy Innovation Center for Energy Materials (iChEM) of the Ministry of Education.
