Abstract
In this paper, zinc–cobalt oxide coatings on fluorine-doped tin-oxide (FTO) coated glass substrate were synthesized by a simple three-step process including chemical precipitation, thermal decomposition at 773 K for 2 h, and spin-coating techniques. The aim of this work was to synthesize mixed Zn–Co oxides coatings that form a p–n heterostructure and explore the influence of morphology on its photoelectrochemical properties. Four different coatings were formed varying the rotation speed (1000, 1200 RPM) and Zn:Co ratio (1:2 and 1:1). The structure and morphology were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The analysis revealed that due to higher Co amount ZnCoO1 (Zn:Co 1:2, 1000 RPM) and ZnCoO2 (Zn:Co 1:2, 1200 RPM) coatings which consist of spinel-type oxides ZnCo2O4, Co3O4, they are more uniform, ~ 442 nm thick and contain lamellar morphology. Meanwhile, changing Zn:Co ratio to 1:1 in ZnCoO3 (1000 RPM) and ZnCoO4 (1200 RPM) leads to spinel (ZnCo2O4) formation, alters the morphology to granular, more rough, porous, uneven with 'hills' and 'valleys', and results in ~ 650 nm thick coatings. Photoelectrochemical activity tests proved high activity of deposited coatings at anodic potentials. The highest active surface area of 0.26 cm2 and the highest activity were reached for ZnCoO3 coating: at 0.85 V vs. Ag,AgCl|KCl(sat) the incident-photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) was 37% and the applied bias photon-to-current (ABPE) efficiency was − 5.91%. Thus, synthesized ZnCo2O4 coating can be used as a future material for oxygen evolving reaction (OER).
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