Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2025 Conference (MATSUSSpring25)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsusspring.2025.144
Publication date: 16th December 2024
Inorganic semiconductor photoabsorbers such as colloidal nanocrystals are frequently employed for a wide variety of energy-related applications by themselves or as part of a hybrid nanostructure,[1] including photocatalysis and photovoltaic devices. However, using them as the photoactive layer in photoelectrochemical (PEC) is less common due to the difficulty in binder-free attachment to transparent conductive oxide (TCO) substrates. On the other hand, polymeric carbon nitrides(CNs) are a family of cheap and highly stable semiconductor materials that can be in situ grown on TCOs. Unfortunately, their successful utilization for PEC has yet to reach the performance of state-of-the-art metal-oxide-based systems, among others, due to insufficient light harvesting and inferior conductivity.[2,3]
In this talk, I present a simple method based on electrophoretic deposition of ZnSe nanocrystals into a porous modified CN layer as the scaffold to form an efficient hybrid photoactive layer over TCO.4 The merits of this simple yet scalable solution processing method will be discussed, including the crucial step of stripping long-chain alkyl surfactant from the nanocrystals. The resulting hybrid structure achieves an impressive Faradaic efficiency towards the oxygen evolution reaction at ca. 87% and doubles the measured photocurrent and IPCE values relative to samples without ZnSe. Our results show the benefit of such a combination in terms of charge separation, stability, and successful water-splitting without using additional co-catalysts—evolving oxygen while minimizing parasitic self-oxidation.[4] This method paves the way for the incorporation of other nanocrystals into porous organic hosts.
This project received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. [849068]) #MFreePEC. Part of this research was funded by the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology, Grant No. 0004809.
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