Phys.org May 31, 2022
Photocatalytic water splitting concept is not yet used industrially. An international team of researchers (Austria, Germany, Japan) has found a new combination of molecular and solid-state catalysts to transform water into O2 molecules, and hydrogen ions into H2 molecules. They anchored clusters made up of cobalt, tungsten and oxygen for oxidizing oxygen, and clusters of sulfur and molybdenum for creating hydrogen molecules on a surface of light-absorbing support structures such as titanium oxide. The energy of the absorbed light led to the creation of free-moving electrons and free-moving positive charges in the titanium oxide. These charges allowed the clusters of atoms to facilitate the splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen. As the exact structure of the clusters was determined with atomic precision, it allowed full understanding of the catalytic cycle. Now that the selected materials have been proven suitable for splitting water, the next step is to further tune their exact structure to achieve even higher efficiencies. According to the researchers this method could also be used to produce more complicated molecules using the concept of artificial photosynthesis. It might even be possible to use the energy of solar radiation to produce hydrocarbons with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water, which can then be used for other applications…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE  1 , 2 Â
Abstract. Credit: ACS Catal. 2022, 12, XXX, 6641–6650, May 20, 2022