Accelerated Discovery of Functional Light Absorber/Catalyst Interfaces
Francesca Maria Toma a, Guiji Liu a
a Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis and Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, US, United States
Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of nanoGe Fall Meeting 2018 (NFM18)
S2 Light Driven Water Splitting
Torremolinos, Spain, 2018 October 22nd - 26th
Organizers: Wolfram Jaegermann and Bernhard Kaiser
Poster, Francesca Maria Toma, 253
Publication date: 6th July 2018

The development of an efficient photoanode remains the primary materials challenge in the establishment of a scalable technology for solar water splitting. The typical photoanode architecture consists of a semiconductor light absorber coated with a metal oxide that serves a combination of functions, including corrosion protection, electrocatalysis, light trapping, hole transport, and elimination of deleterious recombination sites. To provide a more efficient exploration of metal oxide coatings for a given light absorber, we introduce a high throughput methodology wherein a uniform BiVO4 thin film is coated with 858 unique metal oxides covering a range of metal oxide loadings and the full Ni–Fe–Co–Ce oxide quaternary composition space. We then provide understanding of (Ni−Fe−Co−Ce)Ox multiphase catalysts, interfaced with BiVO4 photoanode. Complementary analysis including photoelectrochemical (PEC), open circuit potential (OCP), transient photocurrent (TPC) and photoconductive atomic force microscopy (PC-AFM) measurements revealed that (Co-Fe-Ce)Ox exhibits synergistic effect to capture photogenerated holes of BiVO4, promoting hole transport and collection across the BiVO4/catalyst interface, whereas (Ni-Fe)Ox plays a vital role in reducing charge recombination at BiVO4/electrolyte interface. The amenable integration of (Ni−Fe−Co−Ce)Ox catalysts with BiVO4 photoanode enables to near-completely suppress interface losses of BiVO4 photoanode at 0.8 -1.23 V RHE for solar water oxidation.

 

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