Publication date: 21st July 2025
The conversion of solar energy into chemical energy through photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising approach to decarbonize the energy sector and mitigate the associated environmental and geopolitical problems, producing green hydrogen with zero carbon footprint. However, to ensure its commercial viability and industrial deployment, it is essential to achieve high solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiency and long-term stability of tandem devices. Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) has been considered an excellent material as photoanode in this type of devices. Nonetheless, addressing issues related to its severe charge recombination is mandatory, and the incorporation of hole transport layers (HTL) for effective charge separation can mitigate this problem. Finding HTL materials with suitable band structures for BiVO4 and uniform coating on the nanostructure represent a significant challenge.
In this context, our group has optimized the electrochemical deposition of a conjugated polycarbazole (p-CBZ) acting as HTL. The performance of these hybrid photoanodes for water splitting showed a two-fold increased photocurrent (from 0.87 to 1.91 mA·cm-2 at 1.23 V vs. Reversible Hydrogen Electrode (RHE)) when the p-CBZ layer is deposited. Moreover, an outstanding six times improvement of the photocurrent density is achieved when a NiOOH co-catalyst is deposited,[1] reaching 5.5 mA·cm-2 at 1.23 V vs. RHE. Moreover, the stability of the photoanode was improved, demonstrating a near cero loss of photocurrent for more than 70 hours of operation under continuous illumination.
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