Construction of Highly Ordered Three-dimensional Heterostructured Electrodes for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting under Visible and Infrared Light

本项目的目的是通过对贵金属纳米颗粒、Ln纳米颗粒或窄禁带半导体纳米颗粒的修饰，进一步扩大光吸收范围，构建纳米尺度的高度有序的三维异质结。纳米颗粒修饰的高有序3D异质结构与光电化学(PEC)水分解性能之间的结构-活性关系是研究如何提高光电转换效率的主要对象。采用模板法制备高度有序的三维纳米结构，包括阳极氧化铝(AAO)纳米孔模板和聚苯乙烯(PS)球体模板。然后，将主要通过水热方法对功能纳米粒子进行修饰，以实现具有可见光和红外光响应能力的三维异质结构光电极。通过对三维异质结构光电极在纳米形貌、半导体基质、能级结构和组成等方面的优化，对PEC的水分解性能进行了详细的研究，以获得对结构-活性关系的系统了解。

The purpose of this project is to construct highly ordered three-dimensional (3D) heterostructures at nano-scale with the modification of noble metallic nanoparticles, Ln nanoparticles or narrow gap semiconductor nanoparticles that can further extend light absorption range. The structure-activity relationship between the nanoparticle-modified highly ordered 3D heterostructures and the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting performance is the main object to investigate how to improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency. The highly ordered 3D nanostructures shall be fabricated using template-based method, including anodic alumina oxide (AAO) nano-porous and polystyrene (PS) sphere templates. Then, the modification of functional nanoparticles will be mainly carried out by hydrothermal method in order to realize the 3D heterostructured photoelectrodes with the ability of responding to visible and infrared light. Through the optimization of the 3D heterostructured photoelectrodes in terms of nano-morphology, semiconductor matrixes, energy level structures, and composition, the PEC water splitting performance will be investigated in details to gain systematical understandings of the structure-activity relationship.