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The design of a safe and sustainable process for the synthesis of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a very important subject from the viewpoint of green chemistry. Photocatalytic H2O2 production with earth-abundant water and molecular oxygen (O2) as resources is an ideal process. A successful system based on an organic semiconductor has been proposed; however, it suffers from poor photostability. Here we report an inorganic photocatalyst for H2O2 synthesis. Visible light irradiation (λ >420 nm) of the semiconductor BiVO4 loaded with Au nanoparticles (Au/BiVO4) in pure water with O2 successfully produces H2O2. The bottom of the BiVO4 conduction band (0.02 V vs NHE, pH 0) is more positive than the one-electron reduction potential of O2 (−0.13 V) while more negative than the two-electron reduction potential of O2 (0.68 V). This thus suppresses one-electron reduction of O2 and selectively promotes two-electron reduction of O2, resulting in efficient H2O2 formation.
Hirakawa et al. (Thu,) studied this question.