Atomistic insights into highly active reconstructed edges of monolayer 2H-WSe2 photocatalyst

Mohammad Qorbani, Amr Sabbah, Ying-Ren Lai, Septia Kholimatussadiah, Shaham Quadir, Chih-Yang Huang, Indrajit Shown, Yi-Fan Huang, Michitoshi Hayashi, Kuei-Hsien Chen () and Li-Chyong Chen ()
Additional contact information
Mohammad Qorbani: National Taiwan University
Amr Sabbah: Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica
Ying-Ren Lai: National Taiwan University
Septia Kholimatussadiah: National Taiwan University
Shaham Quadir: National Taiwan University
Chih-Yang Huang: National Taiwan University
Indrajit Shown: Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica
Yi-Fan Huang: Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica
Michitoshi Hayashi: National Taiwan University
Kuei-Hsien Chen: National Taiwan University
Li-Chyong Chen: National Taiwan University

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Ascertaining the function of in-plane intrinsic defects and edge atoms is necessary for developing efficient low-dimensional photocatalysts. We report the wireless photocatalytic CO2 reduction to CH4 over reconstructed edge atoms of monolayer 2H-WSe2 artificial leaves. Our first-principles calculations demonstrate that reconstructed and imperfect edge configurations enable CO2 binding to form linear and bent molecules. Experimental results show that the solar-to-fuel quantum efficiency is a reciprocal function of the flake size. It also indicates that the consumed electron rate per edge atom is two orders of magnitude larger than the in-plane intrinsic defects. Further, nanoscale redox mapping at the monolayer WSe2–liquid interface confirms that the edge is the most preferred region for charge transfer. Our results pave the way for designing a new class of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides with reconstructed edges as a non-precious co-catalyst for wired or wireless hydrogen evolution or CO2 reduction reactions.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28926-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-28926-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28926-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().