Solar hydrogen production by water splitting is one of the promising solutions to mitigate energy crisis and climate change as a green technology to convert solar energy into a form of renewable and storable fuel. Photocatalytic water splitting is considered an appealing approach and an economically feasible means of producing green H2 due to its low cost and simplicity of fabrication.
In the past several decades, many photocatalysts for water photolysis have been developed. However, the number of photocatalysts with water splitting activity under visible light is limited and simultaneous generation of H2 and O2 is almost impossible. Z-scheme water splitting system can alleviate thermodynamic requirements and choice of narrow band gaps materials.
Printable photocatalyst plates have potential usage in water splitting system for practicality of solar hydrogen production. On the printable Z-scheme photocatalyst plates, conductive nanoparticles can be inserted as a conductive mediator between hydrogen evolution photocatalyst (HEP) and oxygen evolution photocatalyst (OEP) to promote water splitting.
Kim Chol Gu, a researcher at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, proposed a printable SrTiO3:La, Rh/ATO/BiVO4:Mo photocatalyst plate incorporating cost-effective Antimony-doped tin oxide (ATO) nanoparticles as a conductive mediator for Z-scheme water splitting.
The photocatalyst plates achieve an apparent quantum efficiency of 6.8% at a wavelength of 420 nm, with solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency (STH) of 0.26%.
For more information, you can refer to his paper “Z-scheme photocatalyst plates using antimony-doped tin oxide (ATO) as a conductive mediator for solar water splitting” in “Chemical papers” (SCI).