Hydrovoltaic effect-enhanced photocatalysis by polyacrylic acid/cobaltous oxide–nitrogen doped carbon system for efficient photocatalytic water splitting

Severe carrier recombination and the slow kinetics of water splitting for photocatalysts hamper their efficient application. Herein, we propose a hydrovoltaic effect-enhanced photocatalytic system in which polyacrylic acid (PAA) and cobaltous oxide (CoO)–nitrogen doped carbon (NC) achieve an enhanced hydrovoltaic effect and CoO–NC acts as a photocatalyst to generate H(2) and H(2)O(2) products simultaneously. In this system, called PAA/CoO–NC, the Schottky barrier height between CoO and the NC interface decreases by 33% due to the hydrovoltaic effect. Moreover, the hydrovoltaic effect induced by H(+) carrier diffusion in the system generates a strong interaction between H(+) ions and the reaction centers of PAA/CoO–NC, improving the kinetics of water splitting in electron transport and species reaction. PAA/CoO–NC exhibits excellent photocatalytic performance, with H(2) and H(2)O(2) production rates of 48.4 and 20.4 mmol g(−1) h(−1), respectively, paving a new way for efficient photocatalyst system construction.