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High Water Oxidation Performance of W‐Doped BiVO 4 Photoanodes Coupled to V 2 O 5 Rods as a Photoabsorber and Hole Carrier
Author(s) -
Oliveira Andreia T.,
Rodriguez Mariandry,
Andrade Tatiana S.,
de Souza Helen E. A.,
Ardisson José D.,
Oliveira Henrique S.,
Oliveira Luiz C. A.,
Lorençon Eudes,
Silva Adilson C.,
Nascimento Lucas L.,
Patrocínio Antonio O. T.,
Pereira Márcio C.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
solar rrl
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.544
H-Index - 37
ISSN - 2367-198X
DOI - 10.1002/solr.201800089
Subject(s) - water splitting , doping , rod , absorption (acoustics) , materials science , band gap , charge carrier , optoelectronics , semiconductor , analytical chemistry (journal) , nanotechnology , chemistry , photocatalysis , catalysis , medicine , biochemistry , alternative medicine , pathology , chromatography , composite material
Monoclinic BiVO 4 is recognized as a promising photoanode for water oxidation, but its relatively wide bandgap energy ( E g ≈2.5 eV) and poor charge transport limit the light absorption ( η abs ) and charge separation ( η sep ) efficiencies, thus resulting in low photocurrents. To solve these drawbacks, here the η abs × η sep product has been decoupled by combining W‐doped BiVO 4 and V 2 O 5 rods ( E g ≈2.1 eV) for simultaneously increasing the light harvesting and the charge separation in photoanodes under back‐side illumination. In this strategy, V 2 O 5 rods maximize the light absorption and hole transport throughout the W‐BiVO 4 film, making more holes to achieve the V 2 O 5 /W‐BiVO 4 /H 2 O interface to trigger the water oxidation reaction with photocurrents as high as 6.6 mA cm −2 at 1.23 V RHE after 2 h reaction. Notably, under back‐side illumination, the W‐BiVO 4 /V 2 O 5 photoanode exhibited η abs × η sep of 74.5 and 93.0% at 0.5 and 1.23 V RHE , respectively, the highest values reported up to date for BiVO 4 ‐based photoelectrodes. This simple strategy brings us closer to develop efficient photoanodes for photoelectrochemical water splitting devices.