Efficient Strategies for Boosting the Water Oxidation Performance of BiVO4 Photoanodes

Miguel García-Tecedor^a, Mariam Barawi^a, Alejandro García-Eguizábal^b, Miguel Gómez-Mendoza^a, Freddy E. Oropeza^a, Ignacio J. Villar-García^c, Camilo A. Mesa^d, Sixto Giménez^e, James R. Durrant^f, Marta Liras^a, Víctor A. de la Peña O'Shea^a

^aPhotoactivated Processes Unit IMDEA Energy Institute, Av. Ramón de la Sagra 3, 28935 Móstoles, Madrid, Spain

^bUniversidad de La Rioja, Centro de Investigación en Síntesis Química, Departamento de Química, Madre de Dios, 53, 26006 Logroño, La Rioja, España

^cDepartment of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad San Pablo-CEU, CEU Universities, Boadilla del Monte, 28668 Madrid, Spain

^dCatalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), CSIC and BIST, Campus UAB, Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain

^eInstituto de Materiales Avanzados, Universidad Jaume I, 12071 Castelló (Spain)

^fDepartment of Chemistry and Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London W12 0BZ London, UK

ECAT
Proceedings of Catalyst Design Strategies for Photo- and Electrochemical Fuel Synthesis (ECAT25)

Madrid, Spain, 2025 February 10th - 11th

Organizers: Marta Liras and Claudio Ampelli

Oral, Miguel García-Tecedor, presentation 016
Publication date: 19th December 2024

BiVO4 has emerged as one of the most promising materials to fabricate efficient photoanodes for photoelectrochemical(PEC) solar water splitting. BiVO4 is an n-type semiconductor, with a 2.4 eV bandgap and a theoretical solar to hydrogen(STH) efficiency of 9.2% with a maximum photocurrent of 7.5 mA cm2 under AM 1.5 G illumination, low overpotential andfavourable band-edge positions towards the Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER).
However, BiVO4 also presents poorelectron transport, high surface recombination and slow water oxidation kinetics. Hence, enormous efforts have been madein the past few years to mitigate these drawbacks through different approaches such as nanostructuring, doping, heterostructuring, the employment of post-synthetic treatments and the use of efficient co-catalysts.

The present study proposes two different strategies for boosting the water oxidation performance of BiVO4 photoanodes: i) a laser treatment and ii) a transition metal doping (Ni, Fe and Co). The origin of this enhanced performance towards Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER) through these two efficient routes was studied by a combination of a suite of structural, chemical, and mechanistic advanced characterization techniques including Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy and Transient Absorption Spectroscopy, among others.

References:

[1] Barawi, M., Gomez-Mendoza, M., Oropeza, F. E., Gorni, G., Villar-Garcia, I. J., Giménez, S., ... & García-Tecedor, M. (2022). Laser-reduced BiVO4 for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 14(29), 33200-33210.

Acknowledgements:

The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). Additionally, this work received financial support through the project TED2021-129999A-C33 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR.

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