Near-infrared light-inducible Z-scheme overall water-splitting photocatalyst without an electron mediator.

We facilely prepared a solid-state heterojunction photocatalyst in which silver vanadium oxide (Ag2V4O11) and zinc rhodium oxide (ZnRh2O4) as oxygen and hydrogen evolution photocatalysts, respectively, were directly connected to generate Ag2V4O11/ZnRh2O4. Ag2V4O11/ZnRh2O4 photocatalyzed overall pure-water splitting without any electron mediator under irradiation with near-infrared light at wavelengths of up to 910 nm. The key points are that the conduction bottom potential of Ag2V4O11 is almost the same as the valence band top potential of ZnRh2O4, and that the bandgaps of Ag2V4O11 and ZnRh2O4 are 1.4 and 1.2 eV, respectively.