Ion-concentration-polarization-assisted photocatalytic reactor for highly efficient water purification.

Photocatalysis, which utilizes solar energy to electrochemically decompose water pollutants into harmless products, has attracted considerable attention to address serious environmental issues. The photocatalytic effect can be enhanced using an external electric field owing to the inhibition of the recombination of photoexcited electrons and holes. However, the typical linear potential bias that induces a small potential drop across a thin photocatalyst film exhibits a limited photocatalytic reaction.

Asymmetric Nanochannel Network-Based Bipolar Ionic Diode for Enhanced Heavy Metal Ion Detection.

A higher rectification degree in ionic diodes is required to achieve better performance in applications. Nonetheless, the active geometrical change that is critical for inducing electrical potential asymmetry is difficult to realize in typical ionic diodes because of the intrinsic limitation of the fabrication method. Here, we propose a nanochannel-network-based bipolar diode with a high rectification degree of ∼1600─the highest value realized until now, to the best of our knowledge.