Shining light on the role of catalysts layers on BiVO4 for water oxidation.
Laia Francas Forcada a, Sacha Corby a, Shababa Selim a, Camilo Mesa a, Yimeng Ma a b, Dongho Lee c, Kyoung-Shin Choi c, James Durrant a
a Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of nanoGe September Meeting 2017 (NFM17)
SF1: Material and Device Innovations for the Practical Implementation of Solar Fuels (SolarFuel17)
Barcelona, Spain, 2017 September 4th - 9th
Organizers: Wilson Smith and Ki Tae Nam
Oral, Laia Francas Forcada, presentation 053
Publication date: 20th June 2016

Hydrogen and other solar fuels have been appointed as the energy vectors of the future. With natural photosynthesis as inspiration, we can develop a device capable of splitting water using sunlight, obtaining oxygen and hydrogen. [1], [2]

Although rapid progress is being made in the field, the efficiency of artificial systems still remains modest. Several metal oxide semiconductors have been shown to be good candidates to carry out the reactions of water oxidation (Fe2O3, BiVO4, TiO2) and proton reduction (Cu2O structures). The addition of different catalyst layers has been proven to improve the performance of the bare material. However, the role of these new layers is still in debate, hence further understanding is key for the rational design of better photoelectrode architectures.  

In this talk, I will focus on the study of different catalyst layers on semiconductors. For this study I will use spectroscopic techniques such as, Transient Absorption Spectroscopy (TAS), PhotoInduced Absorbance spectroscopy (PIAS) [3] and spectroelectrochemistry. All the kinetic information extracted from these experiments will be analysed and compared to depict which are the key points that we need to take into account when depositing a catalyst overlayer.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

[1] S. Berardi, S. Drouet, L. Francàs, C. Gimbert-Suriñach, M. Guttentag, C. Richmond, T. Stoll, A. Llobet, Chem. Soc. Rev.43 (2014), 7501.

[2] Y. Tachibana, L. Vayssieres, James R. Durrant Nature photonics 5 (2012), 511.

[3] F. Le Formal, E. Pastor, S. D. Tilley, C. A. Mesa, S. R. Pendlebury, M. Grätzel and J. R. Durrant, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 137 (2015), 6629.

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