Water splitting metal nitrides

The extension of this approach to artificial leaves based on titanates, niobates, tantalates, metal nitrides and phosphides, metal sulfides, and other transition metal oxides appears possible and useful in order to enhance the photocatalytic efficiency. In addition, the construction of multicomponent systems such as Ti02-CdS or MoS2-CdSe for overall water splitting could also lead to further improvements. This... 

Arai, N., Saito, N., Nishiyama, H., Domen, K., Kobayashi, H., Sato, K., et al. (2007). Effects of divalent metal ion (Mg, Zn and Be ) doping on photocatalytic activity of mthenium oxide-loaded gallium nitride for water splitting. Catalysis Today, 129, 407—413. 

FIGURE 11.7 (a) Band structures of Ta-based materials with different degrees of N2p con-tribntion. (b) UV-Vis reflectance spectra of (oxy)nitrides, which are potential photocatalysts for overall water splitting and have a d metal electronic configuration. Reprinted with permission from Refs. [30, 31]. American Chemical Society and Ref. [32]. Elsevier B. V. (See insert for color representation of the figure.)... 

Light induced water splitting using semiconductor-based photoelec-trodes, nanoparticulate metal oxides, (oxy)nitrides and (oxy)sul-fides, and molecular catalysts that mimic aspects of the active sites in natural enzymes have been extensively investigated and a wealth of new materials and device architectures has been presented in recent years. In the following sections we will look in detail at examples of integrated systems... 

Only metal compounds with d° ions (Ti, Zr, Nb, and Ta) and d ° ions (Ga, In, Ge, Sn, and Sb) have activity for overall photochemical splitting of water. Oxides are dominant, bnt nitrides and oxynitrides (GaN ZnO and Ge3N4) are also known to catalyze the reaction. 

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