Synergetic Photocatalytic Pure Water Splitting and Self-Supplied Oxygen Activation by 2-D WO3/TiO2 Heterostructures

Oxygen generation from the endogenous reaction and accompanying activation is of vital importance in ubiquitous environmental and biological catalysis. In this paper, we demonstrated the construction of sheet-on-sheet heterostructures for photocatalytic pure water splitting, which could simultaneously supply oxygen for molecular oxygen activation. Benefitted from the efficient charge separation between interconnected TiO2 networks and faceted WO3 nanoplates, our 2-D heterostructured photocatalysts exhibited 30- and 6-fold increased activity for pure water splitting than pristine WO3 and TiO2, respectively. Under visible light irradiation, the oxygen generation rate of 178 μmol g–1 h–1 was even comparable to the scavenger-facilitated oxygen evolution reactions reported in the literatures. The type II band alignment was favorable for the selective reduction of oxygen molecules, generating more reactive oxygen species for organic pollutant degradation. These findings represent a promising way of self-supplying oxygen from pure water splitting for environmental and biological application.