Water-splitting photocatalyst that is abundant and inexpensive with low toxicity discovered


As a part of JST's problem-solving oriented basic research program, the research group led by the principal researcher Hideki Abe and the senior researcher Naoto Umezawa at the NIMS's Environmental Remediation Materials Unit discovered a new photocatalyst, Sn3O4, which facilitates the production of hydrogen fuel out of water using sunlight as an energy source.


Many water-splitting photocatalysts, such as titanium dioxide (TiO2), can decompose water and produce when absorbing ultraviolet light. However, due to their inability to absorb visible light, which accounts for more than half of solar energy, their practical use in the conversion of solar energy is limited. While the development of new photocatalysts that are able to split water by absorbing visible light has been worked on globally, there are cost- and environment-related issues because many of the available photocatalysts contain expensive rare metals, such as tantalum, or high concentrations of lead, which is very toxic.

We recently discovered a novel photocatalyst through the approach of integrating both theoretical and experimental sciences. We searched for oxides containing divalent tin ions (Sn2+) based on the theoretical prediction that such substances may have an electronic structure conducive to water-splitting photocatalytic reactions under the presence of visible light. As a result, we found a tin oxide, Sn3O4 (Sn2+2Sn4+O4), that is made up of divalent tin ions (Sn2+) and tetravalent tin ions (Sn4+). Our experiment revealed that this substance facilitates a water-splitting reaction leading to the generation of hydrogen when exposed to which does not activate TiO2.



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Citation: Water-splitting photocatalyst that is abundant and inexpensive with low toxicity discovered (2014, April 14) retrieved 19 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2014-04-water-splitting-photocatalyst-abundant-inexpensive-toxicity.html

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