Visible‐light‐responsive Photocatalyst Based on Nitrogen‐doped Bulk Oxide YTaO4−xNy for Z‐scheme Overall Water Splitting

Abstract

AbstractNitrogen doping into oxide has been proved to be an effective strategy to extend visible‐light utilization of oxides with layered or channeled structure, but it is shortage for the bulk oxides free of layered or channeled structure. Here, we report a novel nitrogen‐doped bulk oxide (denoted as YTaO4−xNy) with good visible light response. As benefited from the strong hybridization of N 2p and O 2p electronic state according to the density functional theory (DFT) calculations, the band gap (3.6 eV) of YTaO4 precursor was sharply narrowed to 2.4 eV on YTaO4−xNy due to the obvious uplift of the valence band maximum (VBM). After decorated with the platinum cocatalyst, the Pt/YTaO4−xNy was used as the H2‐evolving photocatalyst for assembly of Z‐scheme overall water splitting system by coupling with the PtOx/WO3 as the oxygen evolution photocatalyst and using the I−/IO3− as the shuttle ions. This work enriches the material database of nitrogen‐doped oxide with wide visible light absorption and shows its promising application in solar‐to‐chemical conversion.