Acta Phys. -Chim. Sin. ›› 2025, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (7): 100081.doi: 10.1016/j.actphy.2025.100081

Special Issue: S-scheme heterojunction in photocatalysis

• ARTICLE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Hollow AgPt@Pt core-shell cocatalyst with electron-rich Ptδ− shell for boosting selectivity of photocatalytic H2O2 production for faceted BiVO4

Yu Wang1, Haiyang Shi2, Zihan Chen1, Feng Chen1, Ping Wang1, Xuefei Wang1,*()   

  1. 1 School of Materials Science and Engineering, and School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Life Sciences, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, Hubei Province, China
    2 College of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, Hubei Province, China
  • Received:2025-02-12 Revised:2025-03-08 Accepted:2025-03-17 Published:2025-05-22
  • Contact: Email: xuefei@whut.edu.cn (Xuefei Wang)
  • Supported by:
    the National Natural Science Foundation of China(22178276); the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of CPSF(GZC20240888); the National College Students' Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program at Wuhan University of Technology(S202410497023)

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Abstract:

Platinum (Pt) is an excellent oxygen reduction cocatalyst with great potential for the photocatalytic production of H2O2. However, its catalytic efficiency is limited by the strong adsorption of O2, which facilitates O―O bond cleavage and reduces selectivity for the 2-electron oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Fortunately, the strength of the Pt―O bond can be weakened by adjusting the structure of the cocatalyst to modify the electronic structure of Pt. In this paper, Pt and Ag cocatalysts are successively modified on the (010) facet of BiVO4 through a two-step photodeposition method. Due to the occurrence of a displacement reaction during the process, a synergistic catalyst with a hollow AgPt alloy core and an electron-rich Ptδ− shell (AgPt@Pt) structure is ultimately synthesized. Photocatalytic experiments demonstrated that the H2O2 production from BiVO4 modified with hollow AgPt@Pt reached an impressive 1021.5 μmol∙L−1. This corresponds to an AQE of 5.1%, which is 28.6 times higher than that of the Pt/BiVO4 photocatalyst with only 35.7 μmol∙L−1. Furthermore, research results show that AgPt can transfer electrons to the Pt shell to generate electron-rich Ptδ− active sites, thus increasing the antibonding orbital occupancy of Pt―Oads in AgPt@Pt catalysts. This electron redistribution weakens the adsorption strength of O2 on Pt, promoting the 2-electron ORR and facilitating the efficient generation of H2O2. This synthesis strategy offers a versatile approach for preparing other Pt-based nano-alloy cocatalysts with improved activity for the selective reduction of O2 to H2O2.

Key words: Photocatalysis, Electron-rich Ptδ-, O2-adsorption, H2O2, BiVO4