Low-cost processed antimony sulfide nanocrystal photoanodes with increased efficiency and stability

Abstract

Environmentally harmless Antimony sulfide (Sb2S3) photoanode introduced water splitting device have a great potential for producing hydrogen from its optical characteristic. However, fabrication of highly pure Sb2S3 film by solution process has been suppressed due to the presence of various sulfide antimony compounds while chemical synthesis process. Here, high phase purity and high crystallinity Sb2S3 nanocrystal was successfully fabricated by mechanical alloying method. The solvent free and simple fabrication process realized low manufacturing cost of Sb2S3 nanocrystal fabrication without environmental hazard. Optical characterization by XRD, XPS and Raman spectroscopy confirmed that Sb2S3 nanocrystal film has high phase purity with high crystallinity. Furthermore, observed SEM images shows that fabricated Sb2S3 nanocrystal based nanostructure has high thermal stability till 300 °C. Finally, nanostructured Sb2S3 photoanode introduced water splitting device presented a saturation photocurrent of 0.69 mA cm−2 at 1.9 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) in 0.5 M H2SO4 under 1-sun illumination, with high stability and Фsaved, NPAC value, 4.36%. High photocurrent of water splitting device is originated from enlarged surface area of Sb2S3 nanocrystal film and electrical conduction improvement due to thermal annealing which reduced imperfections between nanoparticles.