Photocatalytic Oxygen Evolution with Prussain Blue Coated ZnO Origami Core-Shell Nanostructures

The design and development of particulate photocatalysts has been an attractive strategy to incorporate earth-abundant metal ions to water splitting devices. Herein, we synthesized CoFe-Prussian blue (PB) coated ZnO origami core-shell nanostructures (PB@ZnO) with different mass ratio of PB components and investigated their photocatalytic water oxidation activities in the presence of an electron scavenger. Photocatalytic experiments reveal that the integration of PB on ZnO boosts the oxygen evolution rate by a factor of ~2.4 compared to bare ZnO origami. We ascribe this increased photocatalytic rate to an improved charge carrier separation and transfer due to the formation of heterojunction at the interface between PB and ZnO. Long-term photocatalytic experiments indicate that the activity and stability of the catalyst was preserved up to 9 h. Our results indicate that the core-shell PB@ZnO particles possess a proper band energy alignment for the photocatalytic water oxidation process.