Unveiling the role of carbonate in nickel-based plasmonic core@shell hybrid nanostructure for photocatalytic water splitting
Talebi, Parisa; Kistanov, Andrey A.; Rani, Ekta; Singh, Harishchandra; Pankratov, Vladimir; Pankratova, Viktorija; King, Graham; Huttula, Marko; Cao, Wei (2022-06-17)
Talebi, P., Kistanov, A. A., Rani, E., Singh, H., Pankratov, V., Pankratova, V., King, G., Huttula, M., & Cao, W. (2022). Unveiling the role of carbonate in nickel-based plasmonic core@shell hybrid nanostructure for photocatalytic water splitting. Applied Energy, 322, 119461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119461
© 2022 university of Oulu, Finland. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022062148337
Tiivistelmä
Abstract
Though carbonates are known for several decades, their role in sun-light driven photocatalysis is still hidden. Herein, carbonate boosted solar water splitting in nickel-based plasmonic hybrid nanostructures is disclosed for the first time via in-situ experiments and density-functional theory (DFT)-based calculations. Ni@NiO/NiCO₃ core@shell (shell consisting of crystalline NiO and amorphous NiCO₃) nanostructure with varying size and compositions are studied for hydrogen production. The visible light absorption at ∼470 nm excludes the possibility of NiO as an active photocatalyst, emphasizing plasmon driven H₂ evolution. Under white light irradiation, higher hydrogen yield of ∼80 µmol/g/h for vacuum annealed sample over pristine (∼50 µmol/g/h) complements the spectroscopic data and DFT results, uncovering amorphous NiCO₃ as an active site for H₂ absorption due to its unique electronic structure. This conclusion also supports the time-resolved photoluminescence results, indicating that the plasmonic electrons originating from Ni are transferred to NiCO₃ via NiO. The H₂ evolution rate can further be enhanced and tuned by the incorporation of NiO between Ni and NiCO₃.
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