Photoelectrochemical(PEC)water splitting using semiconductors offers a promising way to convert renewable solar energy to clean hydrogen fuels.However,due to the sluggish reaction kinetics of water oxidation,significa...Photoelectrochemical(PEC)water splitting using semiconductors offers a promising way to convert renewable solar energy to clean hydrogen fuels.However,due to the sluggish reaction kinetics of water oxidation,significant charge recombination occurred at the photoanode/electrolyte interface and cause decrease of its PEC performance.To reduce the surface recombination,we deposit different transition metal complexes on BiVO4 nanocone arrays by a versatile light driven in-situ two electrode photodeposition approach without applied bias.Conformal cobalt phosphate“Co-Pi”,nickel borate“Ni-Bi”and manganese phosphate“Mn-Pi”complexes were deposited on BiVO4 nanocone arrays to form core-shell structure photoanode,all of which lead to enhanced photoelectrochemical performance.The photocurrent of the Co-Pi/BiVO4 photoanode under front-side illumination for 5 min is increased by 4 folds comparing to that of bare BiVO4 photoanode at 0.6 V vs.RHE,reaching a hole transfer efficiency as high as 94.5%at 1.23 V vs.RHE.The proposed photodeposition strategy is simple and efficient,and can be extended to deposite cocatalyst on other semiconductors with a valence band edge located at a potential more positive than the oxidation potential of transition metal ion in the cocatalyst.展开更多
基金supported by the Basic Science Center Program for Ordered Energy Conversion of the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.51888103)the China National Key Research and Development Plan Project(No.2018YFB1502000)the Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China(No.2019JM-400).
文摘Photoelectrochemical(PEC)water splitting using semiconductors offers a promising way to convert renewable solar energy to clean hydrogen fuels.However,due to the sluggish reaction kinetics of water oxidation,significant charge recombination occurred at the photoanode/electrolyte interface and cause decrease of its PEC performance.To reduce the surface recombination,we deposit different transition metal complexes on BiVO4 nanocone arrays by a versatile light driven in-situ two electrode photodeposition approach without applied bias.Conformal cobalt phosphate“Co-Pi”,nickel borate“Ni-Bi”and manganese phosphate“Mn-Pi”complexes were deposited on BiVO4 nanocone arrays to form core-shell structure photoanode,all of which lead to enhanced photoelectrochemical performance.The photocurrent of the Co-Pi/BiVO4 photoanode under front-side illumination for 5 min is increased by 4 folds comparing to that of bare BiVO4 photoanode at 0.6 V vs.RHE,reaching a hole transfer efficiency as high as 94.5%at 1.23 V vs.RHE.The proposed photodeposition strategy is simple and efficient,and can be extended to deposite cocatalyst on other semiconductors with a valence band edge located at a potential more positive than the oxidation potential of transition metal ion in the cocatalyst.
