Publication date: 16th April 2014
Herein, we showed spatially selective photochemical reduction reactivity, evidence for the separation of photogenerated charge carriers on polycrystalline BiVO4 surfaces. The experiments used a polycrystalline monoclinic BiVO4 ceramic synthesized by solid-state reaction. Topographic images obtained from atomic force microscopy (AFM) demonstrated ferroelastic domains on the sample surfaces. The sample was then used to photochemically reduce silver from an aqueous silver nitrate solution. Silver ions were photochemically reduced under blue LED illumination (470 nm wavelength) to silver metal which formed as an insoluble product on the BiVO4 surfaces. Topographic AFM images after reduction revealed that the silver metal forms only in specific areas. Silver deposits were found in patterns correlated to contrast in piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) images and the presence of ferroelastic domains. This finding shows that bulk BiVO4 has charge separation that can promote the photochemical activity for water splitting reactions. Moreover, this could lead BiVO4 to be a high performance material candidate that could be widely used for solar harvesting technologies.
Reference:
[1] Y. Park, K. J. McDonald and K.-S. Choi, Progress in bismuth vanadate photoanodes for use in solar water oxidation, Chem. Soc. Rev. 42, 2321 (2013)
[2] Li, R. et al., Spatial Separation of Photogenerated Electrons and Holes among {010} and {110} Crystal Facets of BiVO4. Nat. Commun. 4:1432 (2013).
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