Hanggara Sudrajat, Ari Susanti, Muharani Asnal
Sodium-doped strontium titanate (Na–SrTiO3) photocatalysts were synthesized via a flux-assisted method and investigated for the coupled production of H2O2 and selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol under aerobic conditions. Among the prepared samples, SrTiO3 doped with 3 mol% Na exhibited the highest activity, achieving H2O2 and benzaldehyde production rates of 0.42 and 0.31 mmol g−1 h−1, respectively, with 93% selectivity toward benzaldehyde. Aliovalent substitution of Na+ for Sr2+ induces lattice contraction and surface reconstruction, accompanied by the formation of oxygen vacancy–related defects. These defect states predominantly generate shallow electronic traps that promote charge separation and suppress electron–hole recombination. Consequently, photogenerated electrons efficiently drive the two-electron oxygen reduction reaction toward H2O2 formation, while photogenerated holes selectively oxidize benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde. The optimized Na-doped SrTiO3 thus enables efficient coupling of solar H2O2 photosynthesis with value-added selective organic transformation. This work demonstrates that defect-mediated alkali-metal doping is an effective strategy for engineering perovskite photocatalysts for integrated redox photochemistry. © 2026 Wiley-VCH GmbH.
Quantum Catalysis Group (Q-cat), Research Center for Quantum Physics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), South Tangerang, Indonesia; Department of Chemical Engineering, State Polytechnic of Malang, Malang, Indonesia; SpectraBridge, Pekanbaru, Indonesia