An Artificial Leaf with Patterned Photocatalysts for Sunlight-Driven Water Splitting
Plant leaves can turn entirely absorbed light into chemical energy due to their spatially separated photosystems I and II in the thylakoid membrane that enables unidirectional Z-scheme type charge transfer between them. In artificial systems that mimic leaves, a lack of spatial and interfacial control of active units (i.e., hydrogen evolution photocatalyst/HEP and oxygen evolution photocatalyst/OEP) introduces competitive charge transfer channels between them, resulting in deficient Z-scheme type charge transfer. Herein, we demonstrate that a patterned photocatalyst sheet, namely, an artificial leaf, comprising an ordered and separated distribution of the OEP and HEP strips on a conductive substrate, achieves unidirectional Z-scheme type charge transfer as the leaves do. It represents a next-generation photocatalytic system that mimics the leaves to bring breakthrough in photocatalytic over water splitting performance with the combination of highly active HEP and OEP photocatalysts, opening up a promising avenue toward solar energy conversion by artificial photosynthesis.
Authors
- Ruotian Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3786-4810)
- Kazunari Domen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7995-4832)
- Fengtao Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9828-6988)
- Yufei Du (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-6661-9097)
- Chao Zhen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2828-6122)
- Xiaoxiang Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5042-9505)
- Hui–Ming Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5387-4241)
- Gang Yu Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6946-7552)
- Honglei Zhu
- Zhaoke Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1104-2583)
- Bei Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5416-2883)
Institutions
- Tongji University (CN)
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Shinshu University (JP)
- Shandong University (CN)
- Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy (CN)
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Published
- 2024-09-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c10807
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.72
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Key Research and Development Program of China