Manipulating multi-spectral slow photons in bilayer inverse opal TiO2@BiVO4 composites for highly enhanced visible light photocatalysis

Résultats de recherche: Contribution à un journal/une revueArticleRevue par des pairs

Résumé

Manipulation of light has been proved to be a promising strategy to increase light harvesting in solar-to-chemical energy conversion, especially in photocatalysis. Inverse opal (IO) photonic structures are highly promising for light manipulation as their periodic dielectric structures enable them to slow down light and localize it within the structure, thereby improving light harvesting and photocatalytic efficiency. However, slow photons are confined to narrow wavelength ranges and hence limit the amount of energy that can be captured through light manipulation. To address this challenge, we synthesized bilayer IO TiO 2@BiVO 4 structures that manifested two distinct stop band gap (SBG) peaks, arising from different pore sizes in each layer, with slow photons available at either edge of each SBG. In addition, we achieved precise control over the frequencies of these multi-spectral slow photons through pore size and incidence angle variations, that enabled us to tune their wavelengths to the electronic absorption of the photocatalyst for optimal light utilization in aqueous phase visible light photocatalysis. This first proof of concept involving multi-spectral slow photon utilization enabled us to achieve up to 8.5 times and 2.2 times higher photocatalytic efficiencies than the corresponding non-structured and monolayer IO photocatalysts respectively. Through this work, we have successfully and significantly improved light harvesting efficiency in slow photon-assisted photocatalysis, the principles of which can be extended to other light harvesting applications.

langue originaleAnglais
Pages (de - à)233-245
Nombre de pages13
journalJournal of colloid and interface science
Volume647
Les DOIs
Etat de la publicationPublié - oct. 2023

Financement

The Thomas Lourdu Madanu thanks the Europe Occidentale Francophone (EOF) and Andhra (India) Jesuit provinces for their support in realizing this work. Sébastien R. Mouchet was supported by the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS) (91400/1.B.309.18F), the Maturation Fund of the Walloon Region, and a BEWARE Fellowship (Convention n◦2110034) of the Walloon Region (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the European Union - COFUND - contract 847587), as a Postdoctoral Researcher. The authors also acknowledge the Physico-Chemical Characterization (PC 2 ) Technology Platform ( https://platforms.unamur.be/pc2 ) and the Electron Microscopy Service (SME) of UNamur ( http://www.unamur.be/en/sevmel ), which is a member of the Morphology - Imaging (MORPH-IM) Technology Platform of UNamur. The Thomas Lourdu Madanu thanks the Europe Occidentale Francophone (EOF) and Andhra (India) Jesuit provinces for their support in realizing this work. Sébastien R. Mouchet was supported by the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS) (91400/1.B.309.18F), the Maturation Fund of the Walloon Region, and a BEWARE Fellowship (Convention n◦2110034) of the Walloon Region (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the European Union - COFUND - contract 847587), as a Postdoctoral Researcher. The authors also acknowledge the Physico-Chemical Characterization (PC2) Technology Platform ( https://platforms.unamur.be/pc2) and the Electron Microscopy Service (SME) of UNamur ( http://www.unamur.be/en/sevmel), which is a member of the Morphology - Imaging (MORPH-IM) Technology Platform of UNamur.

Bailleurs de fondsNuméro du bailleur de fonds
Europe Occidentale Francophone
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the European Union847587
Maturation Fund of the Walloon Region2110034
Région Walonne
Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique F.R.S.-FNRS91400/1

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