Self-driven water purification and simultaneous hydrogen generation by all-nanowire photocatalytic fuel cell with enhanced mass and electron transfer

This paper constructed an all-nanowire photocatalvtic fuel cell with enhanced mass and electron transfer by integrating TiO2 nanowire array photoanodes on three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical carbon cloth and platinized Si nanowire array photocathodes. Under light illumination, the potholes generated at the microlluidic pholoanodes effectively oxidize various harmful contaminants, which significantly enhanced the reduction of water by photoelectrons for hydrogen gas production. Compared with conventional planar photoelectrodes, the all-nanowire photocatalytic fuel cell can efficiently degrade simulated dye wastewater and simultaneously generate hydrogen new energy without requiring an external bias voltage.