Water splitting by photoelectrocatalysis using WO3/BiVO4/Co-Catalyst photoanodes
John Wilman Rodriguez Acosta a, George Creasey a, Tristan McCallum b, Andreas Kafizas b, Anna Hankin a
a Imperial College London, Department of Chemical Engineering, Royal School of Mines, London SW7 2AZ, UK
b Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, W12 OBZ, UK
Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2023 Conference (MATSUSFall23)
#DEVSF - Solar fuels: moving from materials to devices
Torremolinos, Spain, 2023 October 16th - 20th
Organizers: Franky Esteban Bedoya Lora, Anna Hankin and Camilo A. Mesa
Poster, John Wilman Rodriguez Acosta, 342
Publication date: 18th July 2023

Efficient photocatalytic water splitting is difficult to achieve with a single material because it requires the simultaneous generation, separation, and transfer of photogenerated charge carriers. Researchers are working on developing new materials and strategies to improve this efficiency. One promising approach is to use multi-layered photocatalysts, which are two different materials that are stacked together (heterojunctions). This allows for the absorption of a wider range of wavelengths of light and the separation of electrons and holes at different energy levels. Another promising approach is to use co-catalysts, which are small molecules that are added to the photocatalyst surface to accelerate the reactions that take place at the surface of the photocatalyst. Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) has attracted wide attention for water splitting because its bandgap of 2.4 - 2.5 eV enables light absorption up to 517 nm in wavelength and a theoretical solar-to-hydrogen efficiency (ɳSTH) of up to 9.2 %. Nevertheless, its performance is often strongly affected by the relatively high recombination rate of electrons and holes. The WO3/BiVO4 heterojunction system is one of the most promising solutions in terms of performance, cost and durability. WO3 improves the charge transfer between semiconductors and makes the photo-active area greater when nanostructured, but it remains necessary to improve the degree of charge transfer at the BiVO4/electrolyte interface. For this, oxy-hydroxides of some metals, such as Fe and Ni, deposited on the main photoactive layer (BiVO4) have shown promise. In this research, water splitting performance of a photoanode made of BiVO4 deposited on base nanostructures of WO3 and covered by different co-catalysts were investigated. Base nanostructures were synthesized on FTO by chemical vapor deposition process (CVD) and BiVO4 and co-catalysts were deposited by photo-assisted electrodeposition. The active area of photoanodes were 3 cm2 (small scale) but the objective is to scale up the deposition to 50 cm2.

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