Boosting charge spatial separation efficiency for catalytic H2 bubble evolution under macroscopic spontaneous polarization electric field

Abstract Serious recombination of photo-irradiated electrons (e-) and holes (h+) over photocatalysts restricts solar energy conversion, and directional transfer of e-/h+ to reduction/oxidation locations respectively and simultanously, is enormously difficult under the shackle of Coulomb field. Herein, internal spontaneous polarization electric field (ISPEF) has been constructed by coordination between 4d10 orbit of Cd2+ and sp2-hybridized N to induce a non-overlapping state of two opposite charge centers in g-C3N4, which could thus boost charge spatial devision and migration. The significantly improved efficiency for H2 evolution, accompanying by consecutive emission of visual H2 bubbles was realized. Photo-irradiated charge spatial separation and photocatalytic mechanism within ISPEF of CdC3N4 was firstly confirmed by theory prediction and Hall effect characterization. The study strategy supplies a novel perspective to design polarized semiconductor materials for significantly effective solar energy transformation, which will bring about another research highlights for contructing efficiently advanced semiconductor materials.