| AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Energy Frontiers Focus Topic | Friday Sessions |
| Session EN+SS-FrM |
| Session: | Photocatalysis and Solar Fuels |
| Presenter: | Q. Peng, Duke University |
| Authors: | Q. Peng, Duke University B. Kalanyan, North Carolina State University M. Andrew, Research Triangle Institute P. Hoertz, Research Triangle Institute L. Alibabaei, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill J. Liu, Duke University T.J. Meyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill G.N. Parsons, North Carolina State University J.T. Glass, Duke University |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting devices hold great promise for harvesting solar energy, however, existing electrodes suffer from either stability or efficiency limitations. Owing to its low production cost, environmental compatibility, and remarkable stability, TiO2 has been widely investigated as a PEC electrode since 1972. However, the solar-to-fuel conversion efficiency of TiO2 PEC electrodes is still much lower than the theoretical value. This is partially due to the dilemma of short minority carrier diffusion length and long optical absorption length, as well as the low electron mobility. Nanostructured conductive scaffolds show promise to solve this challenge by decoupling light absorption and charge carrier diffusion while enhancing conductivity. In this research, we synthesized TiO2 PEC electrodes on a conductive scaffold comprised of antimony doped tin oxide particles (ATO-particle film). These structures, which are a cost effective alternative to semiconductor supported TiO2 electrodes, yielded a photocurrent density of 0.58 mA/cm2. This is approximately 3× the corresponding current density for planar TiO2 PEC electrodes on FTO glass. Our results have shown that the porosity of ATO-particle film has limited the further efficiency improvement, which can be addressed by optimizing particle size, thickness, and assembly strategy for ATO-particle films. Owing to its transparency in a wide range of wavelengths, the ATO-particle scaffold also has great potential to boost the efficiency of devices using other narrow bandgap PEC materials, e. g. Fe2O3.