Time: March 8, 2017

Source: College of Chemistry & Material 

Published: News Center

Ye Kaihang, a postgraduate student in JNU's College of Chemistry and Materials, published a research paper as first author on Jan. 6 in the internationally renowned journal Energy & Environmental Science (EES, Impact Factor=25.427*). The paper is titled Carbon Quantum Dots as a Visible Light Sensitizer to Significantly Increase the Solar Water Splitting Performance of Bismuth Vanadate Photoanodes. Jinan University is the first unit, and Professors Zhang Yuanming of JNU's Chemistry Department, Mai Wenjie of JNU's Physics Department and Yang Shihe of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology are the corresponding authors.

The paper introduces a new-type photoanode NiOOH/FeOOH/CQD/BiVO4 (NFCB). Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are shown to be a low-cost, chemically stable and environmentally friendly photosensitizer, dramatically broadening the light absorption range to the entire visible range. The NFCB photoanode has achieved a remarkable photocurrent density of a record 16-fold increase without a hole scavenger, demonstrating the great potential of using CQDs for solar water splitting.

Ye was admitted to JNU as a physics and chemistry major from 2014 postgraduate candidates exempt from admission exam. Tutored by Professor Zhang, he was successively sponsored by JNU's Scientific Research Innovation Training Project for Excellent Undergraduates Exempt From Examination to Be Postgraduates and the Short-term Research Project for Postgraduates to Go Outside Mainland China. Ye has achieved outstanding academic results by publishing five academic papers as the first author or corresponding author, including in the journals of Nano Energy (IF = 11.553) and Nano Research (IF = 8.893), with a total IF of 54.39. In 2015, Ye won a China National Scholarship.

Energy & Environmental Science is published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. It covers interdisciplinary work in energy conversion and storage, alternative energy sources, environmental sciences, biochemistry, etc., ranking 31st among 11,992 SCI journals.