Synthesis of ZrO2:Fe nanostructures with visible-light driven H2 evolution activity

Abstract

In this paper, the ZrO₂:Fe nanostructures with precisely controlled Fe doping contents are obtained by using a template method. The characterizations obviously show that the as-prepared samples have hollow sphere-like morphology and high crystalline quality. Furthermore, the band gap of the ZrO₂:Fe nanostructures is facilely tunable by controlling the Fe content. In addition, the density-functional theory (DFT) calculation reveals that the formation of an impurity band in the band gap narrows the band gap of the Fe-doped ZrO₂ nanostructures. The visible-light driven photocatalytic activity of ZrO₂ nanostructures could be remarkably enhanced by doping the Fe impurity. This can be attributed to the red shift of the absorption edge and the trapping effect of the ZrO₂:Fe nanostructures. The research results provide a general and effective method to synthesize different photocatalysts with enhanced visible-light driven H₂ evolution activity.