Solar energy is considered to be the cleanest energy in the 21st century. Photocatalysis is a new energy technology which can directly transfer solar radiation energy into chemical energy. Inorganic semiconductor material (wide band gap semiconductor) is currently the most widely used material for catalysis, which can effectively absorb ultraviolet light. Since the ultraviolet light only occupy 5% of the full spectrum, it is necessary to develop new photocatalytic conversion material with a broad spectrum of light absorption.

Recently, the research group led by Prof. Yujie Xiong made new progress on the design of hybrid photocatalysts, based on their previous findings on related topics. They developed a new approach to better enhance the utilization of plasmonic hot carriers. As of now, use of a Schottky junction has been recognized as the most well established strategy for steering the flow of the carriers that are photogenerated in semiconductor. The core concept of this work is to separate the Schottky junction from the plasmonic hot carrier injection by building two M-S interfaces on the selection of semiconductors facets and metals. With the help of Prof. Jiang Jun, they revealed the key factor to promote the synergistic effect in the interface. The work got finished by Phd student Bai Song Li Xiyu and was published in Advanced materials.

Teamed up with Prof. Jun Jiang and Prof. Qun Zhang, the researchers performed the studies by integrating controlled synthesis with theoretical simulations and advanced characterizations, and designed semiconductor-based hybrid structures with tunable charge transfer and molecular activation, enabling improved photocatalytic efficiency for water splitting and carbon dioxide conversion. This series of progress has been published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 2980, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 5107, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 3205, Advanced Materials 2014, 26, 5689 and Advanced Materials 2014, 26, 4783.

This series of work have clarified the mechanism of photocatalytic process step by step, and helped to optimize the best catalyst material. Recently, they concluded the different method to design the photocatalytic material in a review paper published in the journal Chemical Society Review (Chem. Soc. Rev. 2015, 44, 2893).

This work was supported by 973 Program, NSFC, Recruitment Program of Global Experts, CAS Hundred Talent Program, and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Resources from：http://www.cas.cn/syky/201506/t20150617_4375630.shtml

Paper link：http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201501200/full