51. A ternary nanostructured α-Fe2O3/Au/TiO2 photoanode with reconstructed interfaces for efficient photoelectrocatalytic water splitting
- Author
-
Yanming Fu, Wu Zhou, Shaohua Shen, Ya Liu, Chung-Li Dong, Wu-Ching Chou, Ying-Rui Lu, Liang Zhao, Yu-Cheng Huang, and Penghui Guo
- Subjects
Photocurrent ,Materials science ,Process Chemistry and Technology ,02 engineering and technology ,Electrolyte ,010402 general chemistry ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,01 natural sciences ,Catalysis ,0104 chemical sciences ,Amorphous solid ,Overlayer ,Chemical engineering ,Reversible hydrogen electrode ,Water splitting ,Surface charge ,0210 nano-technology ,Ternary operation ,General Environmental Science - Abstract
In this study, a ternary nanostructured α-Fe2O3/Au/TiO2 film with integrating a crystalline α-Fe2O3 core, metallic Au nanoparticles (NPs), and an amorphous TiO2 overlayer is fabricated and examined as a photoanode for photoelectrocatalytic water splitting. Under simulated solar illumination, the as-prepared photoanode exhibits a four-fold increase (1.05 mA cm−2) in photocurrent density at 1.23 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) relative to bare α-Fe2O3. Based on systematic investigations, it is proposed that Au NPs extract photoholes from the bulk of α-Fe2O3 core and then shuttle them to the outer TiO2 overlayer, and meanwhile, TiO2 overlayer efficiently captures and stores the photoholes and facilitates the hole injection into electrolyte. Thus, the remarkably improved photoelectrocatalytic water splitting performance of α-Fe2O3/Au/TiO2 photoanode is attributed to the significantly suppressed bulk and surface charge recombination due to the relayed pumping of the photogenerated charge carriers through the photoanode/electrolyte interfaces reconstructed by Au NPs and TiO2 overlayer.
- Published
- 2020
- Full Text
- View/download PDF