Abstract
Hydrogen production using a photoelectrochemical (PEC) route promises to be a clean and efficient way of storing solar energy for use in hydrogen-powered fuel cells. Iron oxide (α-Fe2O3) is best suited to be used as a photoelectrode in PEC cells for solar hydrogen production due to its favorable band gap of ∼2.2 eV. Herein, chemical solution deposition was used for the preparation of a series of Co-doped Fe2O3 thin films on a titania buffer layer at different doping concentrations (3.0, 7.0 and 10.0 at%). The maximum anodic photocurrent reached up to 3.04 mA cm−2 by optimizing the balance between the doping concentrations, enhanced donor density, light absorbance, and surface roughness. The optical properties show that the light absorbance tendency switches to the higher wavelength with the further increment of Co beyond 3.0%. Finally, synthesized photosensitive perovskite CH3NH3PbI3 materials were added as a surface treatment agent on the photoelectrode to enhance the photocurrent absolute value. This inorganic nanostructured perovskite CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPbI3) coated on the Co-doped hematite photoanode achieved an overall solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 2.46%. Due to its low temperature processing, stability, and enhance efficiency, this perovskite coated TiO2/Co-doped hematite multilayer thin film solar cell has high potential to be applied in industry for hydrogen production.
Highlights
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an encouraging technology in solar hydrogen production for building a renewable and clean energy economy
This potential requirement could be attained from a semiconductor photoanode with appropriate valence and conduction bands illuminated by visible light
We report a simple method to produce mesoporous Co doped Fe2O3–TiO2 bilayer lms that have a suitable valence band structure to photo-oxidize water to H2 while having a band gap covering the entire range of visible light
Summary
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an encouraging technology in solar hydrogen production for building a renewable and clean energy economy. The free energy change required to split one molecule of H2O to H2 and 1/2O2 under standard conditions is 237.2 kJ molÀ1 while the cell voltages are in the order of 1.8–2.0 V.3,4 This potential requirement could be attained from a semiconductor photoanode with appropriate valence and conduction bands illuminated by visible light. Doped a-Fe2O3 photoactive thin lm has excellent photocatalytic properties as well as high transparency, excellent mechanical and chemical durability This lm can reach maximum solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency with very low cost.[10,11] Owing to this feature, TiO2 containing Fe3+ ions having a band gap energy of 2.3 eV have been reported as photo-catalysts. This study for the rst time highlights a sol–gel chemistry cost effective synthesis route of new nanoheterostructured mesoporous materials with a large interfacial area for solar hydrogen production
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