Not long ago, Yi Cui research team, the American College of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, designed perovskite solar powered water splitting complex system, which makes the hydrogen conversion efficiency of photolysis of water up to 6.2% (three times of the conversion efficiency by using conventional methods).Since the photocatalyst of hydrogen production from hydrolysis facing the low conversion for long-term and the stability of photocatalyst and other problems, the efficiency of the conventional method is only 2%. In order to improve the hydrogen conversion rate, the group devised a new electrode with nano-structured photocatalyst, which deposits the molybdenum-doped bismuth alumina film with the hydrolysis of the superior performance on a conductive nanocone arrays, thereby greatly enhance the light hydrolysis electrode performance. Compared to the conventional planar structure of the electrode, the electrode with nanocone array structure has a better light utilization, charge collection and other properties; at the same time, it can play a good light utilization effect at different times during the whole day.

 

Tungsten and molybdenum are elements in the same column of the periodic table, and exhibit the mostly consistent properties. Tungsten is a modern national economy and national defense irreplaceable strategic resources and basic materials, the important material for electronic power equipment manufacturing, metal materials processing, glass manufacturing, furnaces member structural component manufacturing, aerospace and defense industry, which is taken as the "Industrial Teeth". Tungsten trioxide is an important tungsten compound, which commonly used in the preparation of metal tungsten, WC, tungsten carbide, etc; in addition, because of its special property, it is widely applied in the desulfurization denitration catalyst, gas fittings, photocatalyst, and other fields.

 

Tungsten trioxide is a semiconductor catalyst, when irradiated with light energy greater than the band gap (2.4eV ~ 2.8eV), its electrons in the valence band come to transit, and generate the photo-generated electrons and holes which forma redox system, and can catalyze the hydrolysis process of producing hydrogen. The study found that some of the tungsten trioxide doped with lanthanide can improve its ability to absorb visible light, thereby improving the photocatalytic hydrogen production activity.