Proceedings of Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MAT-SUS) (NFM22)
Publication date: 11th July 2022
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an advancing technology for solar hydrogen production at the surface of the photocatalysts by redox potentials of conduction and valence bands1,2. Hydrogen can be obtained by photocatalytic H2O splitting or electrolysis driven via solar energy3,4.
Recently, great research activities have been performed on synthesis and applications of different black TiO2 structures and heterojunctions. However, the role of defect’s locations (surface and/or bulk) on electronic structure and photocatalytic properties of defective TiO2-x remains poorly understood. In this research we present an experimental study on the influence of oxygen vacancies’ formation locations of defective TiO2-x nanotubes on photocatalytic activities and H2 production via water splitting.
It is expected that plasma reduction at low power mainly leads to the formation of oxygen vacancies at the surface of samples while high temperature hydrogenation process results in introducing defects at the surface and mostly in the bulk of TiO2 nanostructures5. Optimizing main parameters of each method, we report a systematic investigation on the influence of surface and/or bulk oxygen vacancy defects on the photoelectrochemical performance of TiO2 nanotubes.
Although both plasma reduction using low powers and thermal hydrogenation enhanced the photocatalytic activities of defective TiO2-x photoelectrodes in comparison with pristine TNT, our experimental data indicated that the optimal plasma treated sample, R-TNT-15W, exhibits significantly higher charge carrier density and consequently higher H2 production rate than the optimal thermal hydrogenated photoelectrode (B-TNT-550℃). More importantly, surface oxygen vacancies leaded to promoted photogenerated carriers’ lifetime and then hindered the recombination. This research provides new and deep insights for designing suboxide black TiO2-x with enhanced photocatalytic performance and further expanding their application potential in the field of H2 production via water splitting.
The authors would like to acknowledge ERC, DFG and the Erlangen DFG cluster of excellent for financial support. We are also grateful for financial supports from Pasargad Institute for Advanced Innovative Solutions (PIAIS) and Council of the Sharif University of Technology.
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