Photoaccelerated Water Dissociation Across One-Atom-Thick Electrodes.

Recent experiments demonstrated that interfacial water dissociation (HO ⇆ H + OH) could be accelerated exponentially by an electric field applied to graphene electrodes, a phenomenon related to the Wien effect. Here we report an order-of-magnitude acceleration of the interfacial water dissociation reaction under visible-light illumination. This process is accompanied by spatial separation of protons and hydroxide ions across one-atom-thick graphene and enhanced by strong interfacial electric fields.