Developing efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (PHE) systems under a high‐salinity seawater environment is extremely attractive for sustainable energy, which still suffers from the rational design of core photocatalysts. Here, a membrane‐integrated collaborative strategy via incorporating asymmetric‐polarization photocatalysts was proposed. The specific electron mediators ( TPyB‐X ) bearing diverse molecular symmetry were used to modify the prototypical semiconductor graphitic carbon nitride ( CN ). Among them, powder‐state CN‐1%TPyB‐A1 exhibits the best PHE performance of 4179 μmol·g −1 ·h −1 , which is 6.7 times over pure CN . Characterization and theoretical calculations reveal that the asymmetric structure of TPyB‐A1 facilitates the formation of a gradient microelectric field, which promotes directional charge separation and contributes to the enhanced PHE activity. Moreover, the membrane‐based CN‐A1‐EEA displays a satisfactory PHE activity with both freshwater (5114 μmol·m −2 ·h −1 ) and simulated seawater (5285 μmol·m −2 ·h −1 ), exhibiting more stable performance than the powder‐state CN‐1%TPyB‐A1 (decreasing by 34%). This work demonstrates that the membrane‐integrated photocatalyst can effectively resist high‐salinity environments, which gives a new clue to rationally design the related materials working in seawater.
Shi et al. (Sun,) studied this question.