Piangjai PeerakiatkhajohnJung Ho YunTeera ButbureeHongjun ChenSupphasin ThaweesakMiaoqiang LyuSongcan WangLianzhou WangThe University of QueenslandThailand National Nanotechnology CenterMahidol UniversityBurapha UniversityThe Australian National UniversityNorthwestern Polytechnical University2022-08-042022-08-042021-01-15Journal of Hazardous Materials. Vol.402, (2021)18733336030438942-s2.0-85088946571https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/77061Bifunctional photoelectrochemical (PEC) process for simultaneous hydrogen production and mineralisation of humic acid in water using TiO2-1 wt% Au@TiO2/Al2O3/Cu2O multi-layered p-type photoelectrodes is demonstrated. The newly designed bifunctional PEC system leads to a high degradation efficiency of dissolved humic compounds, the target pollutant, by up to 87% during 2 h reaction time. Simultaneously, humic acid is also served as a sacrificial electron donor in the proposed system, contributing to a high photocurrent density of the multi-layered p-type Cu2O photoelectrodes up to -6.32 mA cm−2 at 0 V vs. Reversible Hydrogen Electrode (RHE) under the AM 1.5 simulated 1-Sun solar illumination. The Z-scheme feature of this bifunctional PEC devices exhibiting a short-circuit photocurrent density of -0.45 mA cm−2 and solar-to-hydrogen conversion (STH) of 0.5 % in the presence of humic acid sheds light on the new bias-free artificial photosynthesis PEC system.Mahidol UniversityEnvironmental ScienceArticleSCOPUS10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123533