Efficient Hydrogen Peroxide Generation Utilizing Photocatalytic Oxygen Reduction at a Triphase Interface

Zhen Liu; Xia Sheng; Dandan Wang; Xinjian Feng

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2019.06.023

Efficient Hydrogen Peroxide Generation Utilizing Photocatalytic Oxygen Reduction at a Triphase Interface

iScience. 2019 Jul 26:17:67-73. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.06.023. Epub 2019 Jun 19.

Authors

Zhen Liu¹, Xia Sheng², Dandan Wang¹, Xinjian Feng³

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, P. R. China.
² College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, P. R. China. Electronic address: shengxia@suda.edu.cn.
³ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, P. R. China. Electronic address: xjfeng@suda.edu.cn.

Abstract

Photocatalytic oxygen reduction has garnered attention as an emerging alternative to traditional anthraquinone oxidation process to synthesize H₂O₂. However, despite great efforts to optimize photocatalyst activity, the formation rate has been largely limited by the deficient accessibility of the photocatalysts to sufficient O₂ in water. Here we boost the reaction by reporting an air-liquid-solid triphase photocatalytic system for efficient H₂O₂ generation. The triphase system allows reactant O₂ to reach the reaction interface directly from the ambient atmosphere, greatly increasing the interface O₂ concentration, which in turn simultaneously enhanced the kinetics of formation constant and suppressed the unwanted electron-hole recombination and the kinetics of H₂O₂ decomposition reaction. Compared with a conventional liquid-solid diphase reaction system, the triphase system enables an increase in H₂O₂ formation by a factor of 44. The triphase system is generally applicable to fundamentally understand and maximize the kinetics of semiconductor-based photocatalytic oxygen reduction for H₂O₂ generation.

Keywords: Catalysis; Chemical Reaction Engineering; Materials Characterization Techniques.