Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Ernst-Ruska Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons; Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Peter Grünberg Institute
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Ernst-Ruska Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons; Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Peter Grünberg Institute
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Ernst-Ruska Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons; Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Peter Grünberg Institute
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Ernst-Ruska Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons; Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Peter Grünberg Institute
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Ernst-Ruska Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons; Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Peter Grünberg Institute
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Ernst-Ruska Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons; Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Peter Grünberg Institute
State-of-the-art water-oxidation catalysts in acidic electrolyte usually contain expensive noble metals such as ruthenium and iridium. However, they are exceedingly expensive to be implemented broadly in semiconductor photoanodes for affordable photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting devices. Here, an Earth-abundant CoFe Prussian blue analogue (CoFe-PBA) is incorporated with core-shell Fe2O3Fe2TiO5 type II heterojunction nanowires as composite photoanodes for PEC water splitting. Those deliver a stable photocurrent of 1.25 mA cm-2 at 1.23 V vs. reversible reference electrode in acidic electrolyte (pH=1). The enhancement arises from the synergic behavior between the successive decoration of the hematite surface with nanolayers of Fe2TiO5 and then, CoFe-PBA. The underlying physical mechanism of performance enhancement through formation of the Fe2O3Fe2TiO5 CoFe-PBA heterostructure reveals that the surface states electronic levels of hematite were modified such that an interfacial charge transfer becomes kinetically favorable. These findings open new pathways for the future design of cheap and efficient hematite-based photoanodes.
Keywords: Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, hematite, surface states, Fe2TiO5, CoFe Prussian blue analogue, photoanodes, water oxidation, nanowires, acidic electrolyte
Tang, Peng-Yi and Han, Li-Juan and Hegner, Franziska Simone and Paciok, Paul and Biset-Peiró, Martí and Du, Hong-Chu and Wei, Xian-Kui and Jin, Lei and Xie, Hai-Bing and Shi, Qin and Andreu, Teresa and Lira-Cantú, Mónica and Heggen, Marc and Dunin-Borkowski, Rafal E. and López, Núria and Galán-Mascarós, José Ramón and Morante, Joan Ramon and Arbiol, Jordi, Boosting Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation of Hematite by Surface States Modification (February 1, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3327226 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3327226
This is a paper under consideration at Cell Press and has not been peer-reviewed.
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