Author(s)

Satoshi Tanigawa¹, Toshihiro Takashima^1,2, Hiroshi Irie^1,2*

¹Special Doctoral Program for Green Energy Conversion Science and Technology, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Medicine and Engineering, University of Yamanashi, Yamanashi, Japan.
²Clean Energy Research Center, University of Yamanashi, Yamanashi, Japan.

Visible light-induced two-step overall water-splitting was achieved by combining two types of photocatalysts, which were prepared by introducing foreign elements into rutile titanium dioxide (TiO₂) and strontium titanate (SrTiO₃) with a controlled electronic band structure. Rutile TiO₂ and SrTiO₃ were doped with chromium and tantalum (Cr,Ta-TiO₂) and with rhodium (Rh-SrTiO₃), respectively, to introduce visible-light sensitivity. Under irradiation with only visible light from a 420-nm LED lamp, the simultaneous liberation of hydrogen and oxygen with a molar ratio of ~2:1 was achieved with these two types of photocatalysts in the presence of iodate ion/iodide ion as a redox mediator.

Titanium Dioxide, Strontium Titanate, Visible Light, Overall Water-Splitting, Two-Step Excitation

Tanigawa, S. , Takashima, T. and Irie, H. (2017) Enhanced Visible-Light-Sensitive Two-Step Overall Water-Splitting Based on Band Structure Controls of Titanium Dioxide and Strontium Titanate. Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, 5, 129-141. doi: 10.4236/msce.2017.51017.