Catalyst Award: Visible-range heterojunction nanofiber photocatalysts for water splitting: The effect of co-catalysts

Catalyst项目为历史上的黑人学院和大学提供支持，以建立教师的研究能力，加强科学、技术、工程和数学本科教育和研究。预计该奖项将进一步提高教师的研究能力，提高学院的研究和教学水平，并让本科生参与研究经验。佛罗里达农业和机械大学的这个项目将研究包含金属氧化物和磷化物的异质结光催化系统对水分解的影响。本项目的具体目标是：(1)利用共静电纺丝技术合成多组分异质结纳米纤维光催化剂，并将异质结组成与水裂解活性联系起来；(2)确定低成本核壳型单层纳米颗粒共催化剂在增强光催化活性中的作用。为了制备异质结光催化体系，将采用多用途聚合物辅助静电纺丝技术与微波辅助多元醇还原方法相结合。结构和物理化学性质和光催化活性将通过多种分析技术进行评估，包括x射线衍射（XRD），电子显微镜（SEM & TEM），表面分析（BET和XPS），元素分析（EDS）和光诱导水分解分析。本项目成功完成的潜在贡献和成果有：(1)发展了异质结金属氧化物和金属磷化物光催化体系的制备方法；(2)建立了光催化水裂解的构效关系；(3)开发了合成核壳型纳米级共催化剂的简便方案。此外，研究结果将为如何降低昂贵的贵金属共催化剂的成本因素提供见解，并将它们与廉价金属一起使用，以达到与仅使用贵金属共催化剂相同或更高的催化活性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Catalyst Projects provide support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities to work towards establishing research capacity of faculty to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics undergraduate education and research. It is expected that the award will further the faculty member's research capability, improve research and teaching at the institution, and involve undergraduate students in research experiences. This project at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University will investigate the effect of heterojunction photocatalytic systems that encompasses metal oxides and phosphides on water splitting.The specific aims of this project are (1) to use co-electrospinning technique to synthesize multicomponent heterojunction nanofiber photocatalysts and correlate the heterojunction composition with activity of water splitting and (2) to identify the of the role of low-cost core-shell type monolayer nanoparticle co-catalysts in enhanced photocatalytic activity. In order to produce heterojunction photocatalytic systems, a versatile polymer-assisted electrospinning technique coupled with microwave-assisted polyol reduction method will be employed. The structural and physico-chemical properties along with photocatalytic activities will be evaluated by performing numerous analytical techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), electron microscopy (SEM & TEM), surface analysis (BET and XPS), elemental analysis (EDS), and light-induced water splitting analysis. The potential contributions and outcomes of the successful completion of this project are: (1) development of methodology for preparation of heterojunction metal oxide and metal phosphide photocatalytic systems, (2) establishment of structure-activity relationship in terms of photocatalytic water splitting, and (3) development of facile protocol to synthesize core-shell type nanoscale co-catalysts. Moreover, the results would provide insight on how to reduce the cost factor of expensive noble metal co-catalysts and utilize them along with cheap metals to achieve the same or greater catalytic activity in comparison to noble metal only co-catalystsThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.