Citation: Yuan Tang, Chunyang Wang, Yuchen Guo, Liang Mao, Xiaoyan Cai, Yanfang Li, Boxin Liu, Xin Tan, Jinhua Ye, Tao Yu. Modulating coordination environment of Bi active center atom for efficient photocatalytic water oxidation[J]. Chinese Chemical Letters, ;2026, 37(7): 112275. doi: 10.1016/j.cclet.2025.112275 shu

Modulating coordination environment of Bi active center atom for efficient photocatalytic water oxidation

Yuan Tang ^{b, d, 1} ,
Chunyang Wang ^{a, e, 1} ,
Yuchen Guo ^{b, 1} ,
Liang Mao ^{c, 1} ,
Xiaoyan Cai ^c ,
Yanfang Li ^b ,
Boxin Liu ^b ,
Xin Tan ^b ,
Jinhua Ye ^{d, f} ,
Tao Yu ^{a, *,}

a.
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China
b.
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China
c.
School of Materials Science and Physics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
d.
Research Center for Solar Driven Carbon Neutrality, Hebei University, Baoding 071002, China
e.
China Wuzhou Engineering Group Corporation Limited, Beijing 100053, China
f.
Advanced Catalytic Materials Research Center, School of Material Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China

yutao@tju.edu.cn

Received Date: 27 June 2025
Revised Date: 22 November 2025
Accepted Date: 11 December 2025
Available Online: 14 December 2025

Figures(4)

Photocatalytic water oxidation is considered as the bottleneck step for overall artificial photosynthesis, due to the slow photocarrier transfer kinetics and climbing thermodynamics. Developing the electronic structure of catalytic with more dynamic-thermodynamic advantages is crucial to deal with the above dilemma and realize the photocatalytic water oxidation. This work successfully explores an S-induced modification strategy to induce electronic delocalization and non-equilibrium states for unique Bi active sites. The introduction of V⁴⁺ species leads to asymmetric coordination of Bi atoms in the S-Bi-V⁴⁺ structure to provide more nonlocalized electrons, which initiates a concerted electron transfer in the system. The fine regulation on the local electron density and energy level structure of the Bi active site optimizes the reaction energy barriers to construct thermodynamically more favourable active centers for water oxidation. The optimized 2% S-BVO catalyst achieves outstanding water oxidation rate of 70.25 μmol/h (40 mg catalyst) triggering up to 11.06% apparent quantum efficiency at 420 nm. This work elucidates the influence of synergistic electron interaction of asymmetric coordination structure on both photocarrier transfer kinetics and reaction thermodynamic.
- S-induced modification strategy,
- BiVO₄,
- Water oxidation,
- Synergistic electron interaction,
- Photocatalysis
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