Solar water splitting: preserving the beneficial small feature size in porous α-Fe2O3 photoelectrodes during annealing

Wang L, Lee CY, Schmuki P (2012)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2012

Journal

Journal of Materials Chemistry A Royal Society of Chemistry

Book Volume: 1

Article Number: 212

Journal Issue: 2

DOI: 10.1039/c2ta00431c

Abstract

We prepared mesoporous \textgreeka-Fe2O3/FTO electrodes by a simple anodic precipitation and annealing method. The classic problem is that when annealed in air at >500 °C, the individual particle size increases from $≈$20 nm to 40--60 nm. This grain growth is highly detrimental for the water splitting efficiency. In the present work we show that grain coarsening can efficiently be prevented by a two-step annealing method in Ar, leading to photocurrent densities for such electrodes (obtained in 1 M KOH solution) of up to 2.6 mA cm$-$2 at 1.6 V vs. RHE under AM 1.5 100 mW cm$-$2 illumination, which is significantly higher than 1.5 mA cm$-$2 for conventionally annealed samples.

Authors with CRIS profile

Lei Wang Lehrstuhl für Werkstoffwissenschaften (Korrosion und Oberflächentechnik) Chong-Yong Lee Lehrstuhl für Werkstoffwissenschaften (Korrosion und Oberflächentechnik) Patrik Schmuki Lehrstuhl für Werkstoffwissenschaften (Korrosion und Oberflächentechnik)

Additional Organisation(s)

Exzellenz-Cluster Engineering of Advanced Materials

How to cite

APA:

Wang, L., Lee, C.-Y., & Schmuki, P. (2012). Solar water splitting: preserving the beneficial small feature size in porous α-Fe2O3 photoelectrodes during annealing. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 1(2). https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c2ta00431c

MLA:

Wang, Lei, Chong-Yong Lee, and Patrik Schmuki. "Solar water splitting: preserving the beneficial small feature size in porous α-Fe2O3 photoelectrodes during annealing." Journal of Materials Chemistry A 1.2 (2012).

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