Proposed photosynthesis method for producing hydrogen from dissociated water molecules using incident near-infrared light.

Highly efficient solar energy utilization is very desirable in photocatalytic water splitting. However, until now, the infrared part of the solar spectrum, which constitutes almost half of the solar energy, has not been used, resulting in significant loss in the efficiency of solar energy utilization. Here, we propose a new mechanism for water splitting in which near-infrared light can be used to produce hydrogen. This ability is a result of the unique electronic structure of the photocatalyst, in which the valence band and conduction band are distributed on two opposite surfaces with a large electrostatic potential difference produced by the intrinsic dipole of the photocatalyst. This surface potential difference, acting as an auxiliary booster for photoexcited electrons, can effectively reduce the photocatalyst's band gap required for water splitting in the infrared region. Our electronic structure and optical property calculations on a surface-functionalized hexagonal boron-nitride bilayer confirm the existence of such photocatalysts and verify the reaction mechanism.