Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Behavior of Undoped and Doped BiVO4 inverse Opal Photoelectrode for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

Abstract

Semiconductor metal oxides are one of the most interesting materials for photoelectrochemical (PEC) applications because of inexpensive, robust and strong photocorrosion as well as the possibility of easily morphological control. Among the most investigated metal oxides, BiVO4 metal oxides have attracted considerable interest due to their unique optical and electrical properties with a band gap of 2.4 eV. In this work, the introduction of new photoelectrode architectures to improve the light-harvesting and charge-collection properties was performed using the polystyrene opal template with a size of approximately 380 nm. Upon this template, undoped BiVO4 inverse opal (IO) film was developed via sandwich like infiltration method. Furthermore, to enhance the electric conductivity of undoped BiVO4 material regarded as one of weak points to retard the high efficient PEC performance, the doping process of undoped BiVO4IOs was done to facilitate the various candidates such as- Nb, Ag, Ce and so on.., Related results and discussion would be presented. Keywords: BiVO4, polystyrene opal template, Photoelectrochemical water splitting, Doped BiVO4