Improved solar energy conversion efficiencies for the photocatalytic production of hydrogen via TiO2 semiconductor electrodes

Efficiency of solar water splitting using semiconductor electrodes

“…Houlihan et al [36] presented data for TiO 2 and doped TiO 2 electrodes, finding larger efficiencies under sunlight than under xenon lamp illumination (for example, 0.70% under sunlight and 0.26% under xenon lamp for a TiO 2 electrode). However, the solar irradiance was assumed to be 400 W m −2 at around midday in June in Pennsylvania, USA [37]; this is too low by a factor of around 2.5. Fujishima et al [38] similarly underestimated the solar irradiance as 290 W m −2 , obtaining an efficiency of 0.4% for TiO 2 produced by flame oxidation; using a more realistic irradiance would reduce the efficiency to well below 0.2%.…”

Influence of Cr on photoelectrochemical properties of TiO2 thin films

“…Although many semiconductor materials, such as TiO 2 [2][3][4][5][6], SrTiO 3 [7][8][9], BaTiO 3 [10], WO 3 [11], Fe 2 O 3 [12], CdS [13], Si [14], GaP [15] and GaAs [16] have been tested as photoanodes, by far the most interesting material seems to be TiO 2 ; because of its chemical stability under anodic polarization [1,2,5], while many other materials either dissolve or corrode [17]. The main disadvantage of application of TiO 2 as photoanode is related to poor absorption of sunlight due to its wide energy gap (ca.…”

Materials for photoelectrochemical energy conversion

“…The success reported in this paper is somewhat controversial however, as the processing conditions employed were very close to those used previously, 16,22,36,39,43 which fail to report even comparable performance; ECE is ranged from 0 . 4 to 0 .…”