Abstract
Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4), which has attractive applicability as a photoactive material, presents applications that range from catalysis to water treatment upon visible light irradiation. In this study, we develop a simple synthesis of < 200 nm monoclinic BiVO4 nanoparticles, which were further deposited on transparent conductive substrates by spin coating and calcination, obtaining nanostructured films. The obtained nanostructured BiVO4 photoanodes were tested for water oxidation, leading to promising photocurrents exhibiting competitive onset potentials (~0.3 V vs. RHE). These nanoparticulate BiVO4 photoanodes represent a novel class of highly potential materials for the design of efficient photoelectrochemical devices.
Highlights
The capture of solar energy and its direct conversion into chemical energy using artificial photosystems is one of the most promising routes to provide the global demand of energy in a sustainable way
These systems are normally based on semiconductor materials, operating as the core of the photoanode and/or photocathode, that absorb solar energy, in a photoelectrochemical cell [3]
After four decades of research on this topic [4], the main challenge still lies in the search for efficient, inexpensive, stable, and scalable semiconductors, as photoanodes, where the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) takes place
Summary
The capture of solar energy and its direct conversion into chemical energy using artificial photosystems is one of the most promising routes to provide the global demand of energy in a sustainable way. BiVO4 has attracted much attention due to its low-cost, earth-abundant composition, high chemical and physical stability, and robust and efficient performance as photoanode for water oxidation [5] This material exhibits three different crystalline structures: tetragonal scheelite, monoclinic scheelite, and tetragonal zircon [6]. One of the main pathways to increase the photocurrents of photoelectrodes is to increase their surface area per electrode volume by nanostructuring the films and by using BiVO4 nanoparticles (NPs), as it is performed in the present study. In general, the low ECSA response indicates that is it possible to increase the photoresponse by improving the deposition of the nanoparticles
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