Built-in electric field for photocatalytic overall water splitting through a TiO2/BiOBr P–N heterojunction

Photocatalytic overall water splitting to simultaneously obtain abundant hydrogen and oxygen is still the mountain that stands in the way for the practical applications of hydrogen energy, in which composite semiconductor photocatalysts are critical for providing both electrons and holes to promote the following redox reaction. However, the interface between different components forms a deplete layer to hinder the charge transfer to a large extent. In order to enhance the charger transfer from an interface to the surface and promote the spatial separation of electron–hole pairs, a built-in electric field induced by a p–n heterojunction emerges as the best choice. As a touchstone, a p–n heterojunction of TiO2/BiOBr with a strong built-in electric field has been constructed, which presents a wide spectrum response owing to its interleaved band gaps after composition. The built-in electric field greatly enhances the separation and transportation of photogenerated carriers, resulting in fluorescence quenching due to the carrier recombination. The sample also displayed exceptional photoelectron responses: its photocurrent density (43.3 μA cm−2) was over 10 times that of TiO2 (3.5 μA cm−2) or BiOBr (4.2 μA cm−2). In addition, the sample with a molar ratio of 3 : 1 between TiO2 and BiOBr showed the best photocatalytic overall water splitting performance under visible light (λ > 420 nm): the hydrogen and oxygen production rate were 472.7 μmol gcat.−1 h−1 and 95.7 μmol gcat.−1 h−1, respectively, which are the highest values under visible light without other cocatalysts to have been reported in literature for the photocatalyst.