Constructing SrTiO3 -TiO2 Heterogeneous Hollow Multi-shelled Structures for Enhanced Solar Water Splitting.

Constructing hollow multi-shelled structures (HoMSs) has a significant effect on promoting light absorption property of catalysts and enhancing their performance in solar energy conversion applications. A facile hydrothermal method is used to design the SrTiO3 -TiO2 heterogeneous HoMSs by hydrothermal crystallization of SrTiO3 on the surface of the TiO2 HoMSs, which will realize a full coverage of SrTiO3 on the TiO2 surface and construct the SrTiO3 /TiO2 junctions. The broccoli-like SrTiO3 -TiO2 heterogeneous HoMSs exhibited a fourfold higher overall water splitting performance of 10.6 μmol h-1 for H2 production and 5.1 μmol h-1 for O2 evolution than that of SrTiO3 nanoparticles and the apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of 8.6 % at 365 nm, which can be mainly attributed to 1) HoMS increased the light absorption ability of the constructed photocatalysts and 2) the SrTiO3 -TiO2 junctions boosted the separation efficiency of the photogenerated charge carriers.