Nitrogen-Doped Zinc Oxide for Photo-Driven Molecular Hydrogen Production

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Maria Cristina Paganini¹  Alberto Privitera¹  Mario Chiesa¹  Enrico Salvadori¹  Erik Cerrato² 

[1] Department of Chemistry and NIS Centre, University of Turin, 10125 Torino, Italy;INRIM Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, 10135 Torino, Italy;

关键词: semiconductors;    zinc oxide;    nitrogen doping;    photocatalysis;    EPR spectroscopy;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms23095222

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Due to its thermal stability, conductivity, high exciton binding energy and high electron mobility, zinc oxide is one of the most studied semiconductors in the field of photocatalysis. However, the wide bandgap requires the use of UV photons to harness its potential. A convenient way to appease such a limitation is the doping of the lattice with foreign atoms which, in turn, introduce localized states (defects) within the bandgap. Such localized states make the material optically active in the visible range and reduce the energy required to initiate photo-driven charge separation events. In this work, we employed a green synthetic procedure to achieve a high level of doping and have demonstrated how the thermal treatment during synthesis is crucial to select specific the microscopic (molecular) nature of the defect and, ultimately, the type of chemistry (reduction versus oxidation) that the material is able to perform. We found that low-temperature treatments produce material with higher efficiency in the water photosplitting reaction. This constitutes a further step in the establishment of N-doped ZnO as a photocatalyst for artificial photosynthesis.

【 授权许可】

Unknown