Morphological and optical characterizations of Sb2O5 nanorods as new photoelectrode for hydrogen generation

Abstract

Sb2O5 nanorods were synthesized using vapor transport as a photoelectrode for hydrogen generation. XRD revealed the formation of cubic Sb2O5 crystallographic phase and no other impurity peaks were observed. The SEM images revealed randomly oriented wedge shaped nanorods morphology. The optical band gap, the refractive index and extinction coefficient of the synthesized Sb2O5 nanorods film were calculated from the spectral transmittance and reflectance measurements. The photocurrent density generated from Sb2O5 nanorods film was—0.055 mA cm−2 at −0.88 V and it displayed a fast transient response in the on–off process of light. The calculated hydrogen moles per active unit area was 0.48 μmole/h.cm2. The Sb2O5 nanorods photoelectrode have achieved an incident to photon conversion efficiency of 0.17%. The results indicated that the Sb2O5 nanorods film could be used as a potential photoelectrode in photoelectrochemical water splitting applications.