Bifunctional photoelectrochemical process for humic acid degradation and hydrogen production using multi-layered p-type Cu2O photoelectrodes with plasmonic Au@TiO2

Piangjai Peerakiatkhajohn; Jung-Ho Yun; Teera Butburee; Hongjun Chen; Supphasin Thaweesak; Miaoqiang Lyu; Songcan Wang; Lianzhou Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123533

Bifunctional photoelectrochemical process for humic acid degradation and hydrogen production using multi-layered p-type Cu₂O photoelectrodes with plasmonic Au@TiO₂

J Hazard Mater. 2021 Jan 15:402:123533. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123533. Epub 2020 Jul 25.

Authors

Piangjai Peerakiatkhajohn¹, Jung-Ho Yun², Teera Butburee³, Hongjun Chen⁴, Supphasin Thaweesak⁵, Miaoqiang Lyu⁶, Songcan Wang⁷, Lianzhou Wang⁸

Affiliations

¹ Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4123, Australia; Faculty of Environment and Resource Studies, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, 73170, Thailand.
² Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4123, Australia. Electronic address: j.yun1@uq.edu.au.
³ Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4123, Australia; National Nanotechnology Center, National Science and Technology Development Agency, 111 Thailand Science Park, Pathum Thani, 12120, Thailand.
⁴ Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4123, Australia; Nanotechnology Research Laboratory, Research School of Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
⁵ Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4123, Australia; Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Burapha University, Chon Buri, 20131, Thailand.
⁶ Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4123, Australia.
⁷ Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4123, Australia; Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics (FSCFE), Shaanxi Institute of Flexible Electronics (SIFE) & Shaanxi Institute of Biomedical Materials and Engineering (SIBME), Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), 127 West Youyi Road, Xi'an, 710072, China.
⁸ Nanomaterials Centre, School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4123, Australia. Electronic address: l.wang@uq.edu.au.

PMID: 32758999
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123533

Abstract

Bifunctional photoelectrochemical (PEC) process for simultaneous hydrogen production and mineralisation of humic acid in water using TiO₂-1 wt% Au@TiO₂/Al₂O₃/Cu₂O multi-layered p-type photoelectrodes is demonstrated. The newly designed bifunctional PEC system leads to a high degradation efficiency of dissolved humic compounds, the target pollutant, by up to 87% during 2 h reaction time. Simultaneously, humic acid is also served as a sacrificial electron donor in the proposed system, contributing to a high photocurrent density of the multi-layered p-type Cu₂O photoelectrodes up to -6.32 mA cm^-2 at 0 V vs. Reversible Hydrogen Electrode (RHE) under the AM 1.5 simulated 1-Sun solar illumination. The Z-scheme feature of this bifunctional PEC devices exhibiting a short-circuit photocurrent density of -0.45 mA cm^-2 and solar-to-hydrogen conversion (STH) of 0.5 % in the presence of humic acid sheds light on the new bias-free artificial photosynthesis PEC system.

Keywords: Artificial photosynthesis; H(2) production; Plasmonic; Titanium dioxide; Water treatment.