Butterfly wing architecture assisted CdS/Au/TiO₂ Z-scheme type photocatalytic water splitting

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• 作者：Liang Ding^a ; Han Zhou^a ; Shuai Lou^a ; Jian Ding^a ; Di Zhang^a ; Hanxing Zhu^b ; Tongxiang Fan^a ; ^{txfan@sjtu.edu.cn}
• 关键词：Butterfly wing ; Z-scheme photocatalysts ; Water splitting ; FDTD simulation
• 刊名：International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：9 July, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：38
• 期：20
• 页码：8244-8253
• 全文大小：3123 K

文摘

Inspired by natural Z-scheme photosynthesis and black butterfly wing's antireflection morphology, we used the wings of butterfly Papilio nephelus Boisduva as templates to synthesize CdS/Au/TiO₂ with butterfly wing architecture. This combination of artificial Z-scheme photosystem and butterfly wing's hierarchical architecture was expected to enhance the light harvesting and water splitting efficiency. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation was applied to demonstrate the optical function of the architecture inherited from butterfly wing theoretically, UV-vis spectra and photocatalytic H₂ evolution rates were further recorded to experimentally demonstrate the coupled effect of butterfly wing architecture and CdS/Au/TiO₂ Z-scheme components. The FDTD simulation shows that the architecture of the wing scale TiO₂ effectively reduced the UV light reflection by about 40 % . Meanwhile, the wing scale architecture model exhibited lower UV reflection and transmission in water than those in air, which can be attributed to the stronger diffuse reflection in water. UV-vis spectra and photocatalytic H₂ evolution experiments confirmed that the combination of the wing scale architecture and CdS/Au/TiO₂ Z-scheme components contributed to the enhancement of the light harvesting ability and improved the water-splitting efficiency by 200 % compared to the plate architecture TiO₂. Inspired by Nature, we present a promising way for constructing efficient photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution.