English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Anatase TiO 2 is an intensely investigated photocatalytic material due to its abundance and chemical stability. However, it suffers from weak light harvesting and low photocatalytic efficiency. Experiments show that light absorption and photocatalytic properties can be enhanced simultaneously by TiO 2 doping with well-dispersed Cu atoms, forming a single-atom catalyst (Cu/TiO 2 ) that can be used for solar water splitting and other applications. By performing ab initio nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that Cu/TiO 2 is inactive before light irradiation due to rapid electron-hole recombination via both shallow and deep traps. Surprisingly, the shallow trap is more detrimental to the Cu/TiO 2 performance than the deep trap because it couples better to free carriers. After light irradiation, leading to electron transfer and Cu/TiO 2 protonation, the shallow trap is eliminated, and a local distortion around the Cu atom stabilizes the deep trap state on the Cu d-orbital, decoupling it from free charges and giving rise to high photocatalytic hydrogen generation activity. We further demonstrate that the photocatalytic performance of Cu/TiO 2 can be enhanced by spin selection, achievable experimentally via optical intersite spin transfer or chiral semiconductor coating. Both H adsorption and spin selection enhance charge carrier lifetimes by an order of magnitude. The spin selection mechanism does not require formation of the H species, which necessitates concurrent sources of electrons and protons and which is intrinsically unstable because water splitting involves frequent proton shuffling. Our results rationalize the experimental observations at the atomistic level, provide mechanistic insights into operation of single atom photocatalysis, and demonstrate that spin selection can be used to develop advanced and efficient systems for solar energy conversion.

Water Splitting with a Single-Atom Cu/TiO2 Photocatalyst: Atomistic Origin of High Efficiency and Proposed Enhancement by Spin Selection

Water Splitting with a Single-Atom Cu/TiO₂ Photocatalyst: Atomistic Origin of High Efficiency and Proposed Enhancement by Spin Selection