Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV18)
Publication date: 21st February 2018
The development of photoelectrochemical strategies for the production of added value chemicals and fuels using solar light is particularly attractive to overcome the dependence on fossil fuels at a global scale. Specifically, the photoelectrochemical oxidation of H2O to produce solar H2 as a clean energy vector or valuable chemical precursor stands out as one of the most promising approaches in this direction. At present, Ni based oxides constitute one of the most attractive water oxidation electrocatalysts for its integration in photoelectrochemical devices for the production of solar fuels. This study tries to shed light on the understanding of the mechanisms of nickel oxide (NiOx) on the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). NiOx films were deposited by magnetron sputtering on different conductive substrates, and complementary structural, optical, electrochemical and spectroscopic techniques were employed to identify the most relevant steps towards water oxidation as well as to determine the limiting factors for performance.