Two birds with one stone: Functionalized wood composites for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen production and solar water evaporation

Maximizing solar energy utilization is a persistent challenge in photocatalysis, which determines sustainable solar-driven photocatalytic process. Photothermal-coupled photocatalysis is considered as a promising solution to tackle the issues of sustainable energy scarcity and environmental pollution by harvesting the full-spectrum solar energy. Herein, a highly efficient photothermal-accelerated photocatalysis system is elaborately established, in which the assembled carbonized stick/Nb2C MXene evaporator can heat water into vapor and the integrated g-C3N4 photocatalyst further enables high-efficiency photocatalytic hydrogen production. The designed hyperboloid wood-based architecture possesses a multiphase interface of water steam/ catalyst/ hydrogen to reduce the transport resistance of hydrogen gas in liquid and ultimately maximize the output of hydrogen energy. Consequently, this coupled photothermal-photocatalytic system achieves a stable solar evaporation rate of 2.16 kg m-1 h-1 under one sun irradiation and highly efficient hydrogen-evolving rate of 3096 μmol g-1 h-1. This work paves a way to explore the improvement of photocatalytic hydrogen production by synergic photothermal effect for potential applications in renewable solar energy utilization and hydrogen production.