Constructing SrTiO₃-TiO₂ Heterogeneous Hollow Multi-shelled Structures for Enhanced Solar Water Splitting.

Constructing hollow multi-shelled structures (HoMSs) demonstrates significant effect on promoting light absorption property of catalysts and enhancing their performance in solar energy conversion applications. Perovskite SrTiO₃ photocatalyst exhibits giant potential in photocatalytic applications, but difficulties in controlling its morphology structure restrict the further enhancement in its light harvesting ability. Herein, we introduce a facile hydrothermal method to design the SrTiO₃-TiO₂ heterogeneous HoMSs by a hydrothermal crystallization of SrTiO₃ on the surface of the TiO₂ HoMSs, which will realize a full coverage of SrTiO₃ on the TiO₂ surface and construct the high-quality interface of SrTiO₃/TiO₂. The broccoli-like SrTiO₃-TiO₂ heterogeneous HoMSs exhibited a fourfold higher overall water splitting performance of 10.6 μmol/h for H₂ production and 5.1μmol/h for O₂ evolution than that of conventional SrTiO₃ nanoparticles and the apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of 8.6% at 365 nm, which can be mainly attributed to 1) HoMSs increased the light absorption ability of SrTiO₃-TiO₂ and 2) high quality SrTiO₃-TiO₂ interface boosted the photogenerated electron-hole separation efficiency.