Enhancing long-term photostability of BiVO4 photoanodes for solar water splitting by tuning electrolyte composition

Dissolution of BiVO4 Photoanodes Revealed by Time-Resolved Measurements under Photoelectrochemical Conditions

“…They have clearly observed a significant amount of dissolved V and a lower amount of dissolved Bi. 18 Finally, Toma et al measured in phosphate buffers (K 2 HPO 4 at pH = 6.8 or K 3 PO 4 at pH = 12.3) at 0.1 or 1 M and observed close to stoichiometric Bi and V dissolution. 17 The major discrepancy between the last two reports is the amount of Bi dissolution with respect to V dissolution.…”

“…To exclude contact dissolution, Lee and Choi applied chemical treatment prior to PEC measurements to standardize the surfaces under investigation. 18 By following their procedure The Journal of Physical Chemistry C Article immersing our BiVO 4 films into 1 M NaOH for 15 min, however, a contact dissolution peak of primarily Bi instead of V was observed. Their strategy to reduce contact dissolution does not apply here, which may be due to the difference in the synthesis of BiVO 4 films.…”

An Efficient Strategy for Boosting Photogenerated Charge Separation by Using Porphyrins as Interfacial Charge Mediators

“…We describe herein an ovel charge transfer system designed with BiVO 4 as ap rototype.I nt his system, porphyrins act as an interfacial-charge-transfer mediator,l ike avolleyball setter,toefficiently suppress surface recombination through higher hole-transfer kinetics rather than as atraditional photosensitizer.Furthermore,wefound that the introduction of a" setter" can ensure al ong lifetime of charge carriers at the photoanode/electrolyte interface.This simple interface chargemodulation system exhibits increased photocurrent density from 0.68 to 4.75 mA cm À2 and provides ap romising design strategy for efficient photogenerated charge separation to improve PEC performance.Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an environmentally friendly and renewable approach for the conversion of solar power into chemical energy. [1][2][3][4] TheP EC process is mainly divided into three steps, [5][6][7][8][9] including adequate light harvesting,e ffective charge separation, and af ast surface reaction. [10,11] Unfortunately,many photocatalysts suffer from severe surface recombination [12] at the photoanode/electrolyte junction, which significantly hampers their application in photocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic systems.Recently,b yl oading oxygen evolution cocatalysts (OECs), such as transition-metal (Fe, Co,N i) oxides and hydroxides (i.e., binary and ternary compounds), on the photoanodes (e.g.,n -Fe 2 O 3 , [13,14] n-BiVO 4 , [15] WO 3 [16] ), the PEC performance could be enhanced.…”

“…Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an environmentally friendly and renewable approach for the conversion of solar power into chemical energy. [1][2][3][4] TheP EC process is mainly divided into three steps, [5][6][7][8][9] including adequate light harvesting,e ffective charge separation, and af ast surface reaction. [10,11] Unfortunately,many photocatalysts suffer from severe surface recombination [12] at the photoanode/electrolyte junction, which significantly hampers their application in photocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic systems.…”

Atomic Layer Deposition of Space‐Efficient SnO2 Underlayers for BiVO4 Host–Guest Architectures for Photoassisted Water Splitting

“…Many previous studies have used cathodic electrodeposition of BiVO 4 or precursors thereof. [3,4,13,[53][54][55][56] The application of cathodic currents is perhaps challengings ubsequentt od eposition of an underlayer intended to block holes. In contrast, ALD is capable of conformal depositions regardless of the electronic structure of any precedingl ayers.O ur recently developed SF-ALD of BiVO 4 is uniquelysuited to enablehost-guest strategies that include underlayers.Aseries of 3D nanostructured transparentc onductors were used as hosts for the SF-ALD of 30 nm films of BiVO 4 .T he hosts werec omposed of antimony-doped tin oxide nanotubes (ATO-NTs) prepared by hydrothermal growth and solutiond eposition, which had variable lengths of 2.2-2.8 mm.…”