New Insight of Water-Splitting Photocatalyst: H2O2-Resistance Poisoning and Photothermal Deactivation in Sub-micrometer CoO Octahedrons

Hydrogen production by photocatalytic overall water-splitting represents an ideal pathway for clean energy harvesting, for which developing high-efficiency catalysts has been the central scientific topic. Nanosized CoO with high solar-to-hydrogen efficiency (5%) is one of the most promising catalyst candidates. However, poor understanding of this photocatalyst leaves the key issue of rapid deactivation unclear and severely hinders its wide application. Here, we report a sub-micrometer CoO octahedron photocatalyst with high overall-water-splitting activity and outstanding ability of H2O2-resistance poisoning. We show that the deactivation of CoO catalyst originates from the unintended thermoinduced oxidation of CoO during photocatalysis, with coexistence of oxygen and water. We then demonstrate that introduction of graphene, as a heat conductor, largely enhanced the photocatalytic activity and stability of the CoO. Our work not only provides a new insight of CoO for photocatalytic water splitting but also demonstrates a new concept for photocatalyst design.