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Determining the Efficiency of Photoelectrode Materials by Coupling Cavity‐Microelectrode Tips and Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy
Author(s) -
Visibile Alberto,
Baran Tomasz,
Rondinini Sandra,
Minguzzi Alessandro,
Vertova Alberto
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
chemelectrochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.182
H-Index - 59
ISSN - 2196-0216
DOI - 10.1002/celc.202000432
Subject(s) - scanning electrochemical microscopy , materials science , microelectrode , photodegradation , semiconductor , substrate (aquarium) , electrochemistry , photoelectrochemistry , microscopy , optoelectronics , water splitting , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , electrode , optics , chemistry , photocatalysis , catalysis , biochemistry , oceanography , physics , engineering , geology
Photoelectrochemical water splitting (PEC‐WS) is a promising route to obtain hydrogen (and oxygen) from sunlight and water. However, too many semiconductors show poor stability, due to photodegradation phenomena in aqueous solutions, thus loosing efficiency under operative conditions. Aim of this paper is to introduce a simple and fast method for screening different semiconductor materials and identify their efficiency in H 2 (or O 2 ) production with respect to photocorrosion. This method could be used with any finely dispersed semiconductor (powder) for a fast, preliminary evaluation of the material's behaviour without interferences from the supporting material (i. e. FTO) or any binder. The method is based on the combination of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) in the tip generation/substrate collection (TG/SC) mode and of cavity microelectrodes as SECM tips. Here, we show results obtained on three powder materials, namely core‐shell CuI/CuO, CuI and TiO 2 .