Morphology effects in all iron oxide-based photoanodes

Serena Berardi^a, Nicola Dalle Carbonare^a, Stefano Caramori^a, Carlo Alberto Bignozzi^a, Antonio Miotello^b, Nainesh Patel^b, Nicola Bazzanella^b, Zakaria El Koura^b, Alberto Mazzi^b, Michele Orlandi^b

^aUniversity of Ferrara, via Luigi Borsari 46, Ferrara, 44100, Italy

^bUniversity of Trento, IT, Via Sommarive 14, Povo (Trento), 38123, Italy

Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of September Meeting 2016 (NFM16)

Berlin, Germany, 2016 September 5th - 13th

Organizers: Marin Alexe, Enrique Cánovas, Celso de Mello Donega, Ivan Infante, Thomas Kirchartz, Maksym Kovalenko, Federico Rosei, Lukas Schmidt-Mende, Laurens Siebbeles, Peter Strasser, Teodor K Todorov, Roel van de Krol and Ulrike Woggon

Poster, Serena Berardi, 075
Publication date: 14th June 2016

The exploitation of renewable energy sources (such as sunlight), strived to produce alternative fuels, is one of the most pursued strategies to relieve the global energy thirst. With this aim, a viable but challenging approach consists in the development of photoelectrochemical cells.[1] These devices mimic the natural photosynthesis by storing solar energy as chemical energy in value-added compounds produced at two separated electrodes.

In this contribution, we will report recent results obtained with all iron oxide-based photoanodes, able to efficiently perform the semireaction of water oxidation.[2] In particular, crystalline hematite (α-Fe₂O₃) was coupled with pulsed-laser deposited amorphous iron oxides, thus combining the sunlight absorption and charge carrier generation properties of the former [3] with the catalytic activity of the latter.

Insights on the morphology effects of the nanosized amorphous catalyst on the performances of the photoanodes will be also discussed, evidencing the importance of a porous versus a compact catalytic layer.

The choice of iron oxide clearly fulfils the requirements associated with a large scale application of this kind of devices, i.e. the cheapness due to earth abundance and the non-toxicity, along with the good performances of the final photoanodes.

Acknowledgments: The project leading to this application has received funding from the PAT (Provincia Autonoma di Trento) project “ENAM” (in cooperation with MCB-CNR Institute), the FIRB-MIUR “Nanosolar” project and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 705723.

[1] a) S. Berardi, S. Drouet, L. Francàs, C. Gimbert-Suriñach, M. Guttentag, C. Richmond, T. Stoll, A. Llobet Chem. Soc. Rev. 2014, 43, 7501; b) Y. Tachibana, L. Vayssieres, J. R. Durrant Nature Photon. 2012, 6, 511 ; c) M. S. Prévot, K. Sivula J. Phys. Chem. C 2013, 117, 17879; d) K. S. Joya, Y. F. Joya, K. Ocakoglu, R. van de Krol Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 10426.

[2] M. Orlandi, N. Dalle Carbonare, S. Caramori, C. A. Bignozzi, S. Berardi, A. Mazzi, Z. El Koura, N. Bazzanella, N. Patel, A. Miotello ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, accepted.

[3] K. Sivula, F. Le Formal, M. Graetzel ChemSusChem 2011, 4, 432.

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