Intercalation of highly dispersed metal nanoclusters into a layered metal oxide for photocatalytic overall water splitting

Takayoshi Oshima; Daling Lu; Osamu Ishitani; Kazuhiko Maeda

doi:10.1002/anie.201411494

Intercalation of highly dispersed metal nanoclusters into a layered metal oxide for photocatalytic overall water splitting

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2015 Feb 23;54(9):2698-702. doi: 10.1002/anie.201411494. Epub 2015 Feb 5.

Authors

Takayoshi Oshima¹, Daling Lu, Osamu Ishitani, Kazuhiko Maeda

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1-NE-2 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8550 (Japan).

PMID: 25654992
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201411494

Abstract

Metal nanoclusters (involving metals such as platinum) with a diameter smaller than 1 nm were deposited on the interlayer nanospace of KCa2 Nb3 O10 using the electrostatic attraction between a cationic metal complex (e.g., [Pt(NH3 )4 ]Cl2 ) and a negatively charged two-dimensional Ca2 Nb3 O10 (-) sheet, without the aid of any additional reagent. The material obtained possessed eight-fold greater photocatalytic activity for water splitting into H2 and O2 under band-gap irradiation than the previously reported analog using a RuO2 promoter. This study highlighted the superior functionality of Pt nanoclusters with diameters smaller than 1 nm for photocatalytic overall water splitting. This material shows the greatest efficiency among nanosheet-based photocatalysts reported to date.

Keywords: heterogeneous catalysis; nanosheets; photocatalysis; semiconductors; water splitting.