A new TiO2 nanorods/MoTe2 quantum dots/Al2O3 composite photocatalyst for efficient photoelectrochemical water splitting under simulated sunlight
Jie Meng1,3, Hongmei Liu1(), Sainan Zhang3, Baogui Ye1, Min Feng4, Daoai Wang2,3()
1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730000, China 2. State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China 3. Qingdao Center of Resource Chemistry and New Materials, Qingdao 266100, China 4. Shandong Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Green Manufacturing at Yantai, Yantai 265503, China
The solar-to-hydrogen conversion using the photoelectrochemical (PEC) method is a practical approach to producing clean energy. However, it relies on the availability of photocatalyst materials. In this work, a novel photocatalyst comprising molybdenum telluride quantum dots (MoTe2 QDs)-modified titanium dioxide nanorods (TiO2 NRs) was prepared for the enhancement of the PEC water splitting performance after combination with a Al2O3 layer using the atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. MoTe2 QDs were initially prepared, and then they were loaded onto TiO2 NRs using a warm water bath-based heating method. After a layer of Al2O3 was deposited onto resulted TiO2 NRs/MoTe2 QDs, the composite TiO2 NRs/MoTe2 QDs/Al2O3 was finally obtained. Under simulated sunlight (100 mW·cm−2), such a composite exhibited a maximum photocurrent density of 2.25 mA·cm−2 at 1.23 V (versus RHE) and an incident photon-to-electron conversion efficiency of 69.88% at 380 nm, which are 4.33 and 6.66 times those of pure TiO2 NRs, respectively. Therefore, the composite photocatalyst fabricated in this work may have promising application in the field of PEC water splitting, solar cells and other photocatalytic devices.
. [J]. Frontiers of Materials Science, 2024, 18(2): 240686.
Jie Meng, Hongmei Liu, Sainan Zhang, Baogui Ye, Min Feng, Daoai Wang. A new TiO2 nanorods/MoTe2 quantum dots/Al2O3 composite photocatalyst for efficient photoelectrochemical water splitting under simulated sunlight. Front. Mater. Sci., 2024, 18(2): 240686.
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