Abstract
The unsatisfactory solar light absorption of WO3 and poor charge separation of BiVO4 are main limits for their use in photoelectrochemical (PEC) water oxidation. Coupling WO3 with BiVO4 has been considered as a feasible way to improve PEC performance by taking complementary advantages of them. In this work, we obtained nanoflake-structured WO3 by hydrothermal growth with post-annealing. The effect of process variables on morphology and resultant performance were investigated. Electrodeposition growth was utilized to deposit BiVO4 onto WO3 forming WO3/BiVO4 heterojunction thin films. Porous BiVO4 with wormlike morphology was tightly coupled and well-distributed onto WO3 nanoflakes. The optimized best-performing WO3/BiVO4 photoanode exhibits higher photocurrent density than that summation of bare WO3 and BiVO4 over entire range of applied potential. This enhancement is mainly attributed to the effective charge separation at WO3/BiVO4 interface, which is confirmed through electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS) measurements, respectively. Our work provides a referable approach for the growth of WO3/BiVO4 heterojunction photoanode with enhanced PEC performance.
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