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New BiVO 4 Dual Photoanodes with Enriched Oxygen Vacancies for Efficient Solar‐Driven Water Splitting
Author(s) -
Wang Songcan,
Chen Peng,
Bai Yang,
Yun JungHo,
Liu Gang,
Wang Lianzhou
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.201800486
Subject(s) - bismuth vanadate , materials science , photocurrent , water splitting , oxide , oxygen , oxygen evolution , chemical engineering , perovskite (structure) , bismuth , hydrogen , charge carrier , solar cell , electrode , optoelectronics , nanotechnology , photocatalysis , catalysis , electrochemistry , chemistry , biochemistry , organic chemistry , engineering , metallurgy
Bismuth vanadate (BiVO 4 ) is a promising photoanode material for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. However, owing to the short carrier diffusion length, the trade‐off between sufficient light absorption and efficient charge separation often leads to poor PEC performance. Herein, a new electrodeposition process is developed to prepare bismuth oxide precursor films, which can be converted to transparent BiVO 4 films with well‐controlled oxygen vacancies via a mild thermal treatment process. The optimized BiVO 4 film exhibits an excellent back illumination charge separation efficiency mainly due to the presence of enriched oxygen vacancies which act as shallow donors. By loading FeOOH/NiOOH as the cocatalysts, the BiVO 4 dual photoanodes exhibit a remarkable and highly stable photocurrent density of 5.87 mA cm − 2 at 1.23 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode under AM 1.5 G illumination. An artificial leaf composed of the BiVO 4 /FeOOH/NiOOH dual photoanodes and a single sealed perovskite solar cell delivers a solar‐to‐hydrogen conversion efficiency as high as 6.5% for unbiased water splitting.