Issue 17, 2024

Regulating the electron spin orbital by sulfur doping of Ti vacancies to manipulate spin flip for enhancing PEC water splitting performance

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) as a semiconductor photocatalyst has been broadly investigated due to its high chemical stability, nontoxicity and low cost. Nevertheless, TiO2 still suffers from low visible-light response and rapid photogenerated charge carrier recombination. Herein, to overcome the limitations of TiO2, different sulfur sources were incorporated in Ti vacancy defects by a vacancy capture strategy. Compared to oxygen vacancies, the Ti vacancies (VTi) on TiO2 can induce the transfer of electrons from the electron spin-down orbital (Image ID:d4ee02674h-t1.gif) in the valence band to the electron spin-up orbital (Image ID:d4ee02674h-t2.gif) in the conduction band. The excited electrons are forbidden by the spin-down orbital in the valence band due to the spin pinning effect, which inhibits recombination of electron–hole pairs for enhancing PEC water splitting performance. More significantly, the sulfur dopants can manipulate electron spin flip to regulate the electron spin direction and increase the number of charge carriers. This can solve the key problem of the common doping strategy, which is a high recombination rate of electron–hole pairs due to the reduced band gap through doping the p state above the valence band. This work provides an efficient pathway to improve PEC activity by manipulating spin flip through cationic vacancy modification technology.

Graphical abstract: Regulating the electron spin orbital by sulfur doping of Ti vacancies to manipulate spin flip for enhancing PEC water splitting performance

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
19 Jun 2024
Accepted
10 Jul 2024
First published
19 Jul 2024

Energy Environ. Sci., 2024,17, 6268-6278

Regulating the electron spin orbital by sulfur doping of Ti vacancies to manipulate spin flip for enhancing PEC water splitting performance

Y. Gao, M. Zhang, Q. Zhao, W. Liu, L. Zheng, J. Ouyang and N. Na, Energy Environ. Sci., 2024, 17, 6268 DOI: 10.1039/D4EE02674H

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements