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Amorphous Co–Pi anchored on CdSe/TiO2 nanowire arrays for efficient photoelectrochemical hydrogen production

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Abstract

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen using hybridized semiconductor photoelectrodes has become a promising strategy for converting solar energy into clean and sustainable H2 fuel. Here, we report a promising hybrid photoanode constructed by electrodepositing an amorphous Co–Pi film onto semiconducting CdSe/TiO2 nanowire arrays for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production. This photoanode exhibits a high water-splitting photocurrent density, which is attributed to the broad visible light absorption and efficient charge carrier separation by the virtue of the type-II heterojunction formed between TiO2 and CdSe. Photoconversion efficiency of Co–Pi/CdSe/TiO2 and CdSe/TiO2 photoanodes increase by 3.3 and 2.1 times, compared with the pristine TiO2 photoanode. Moreover, Co–Pi/CdSe/TiO2 photoelectrode shows greatly improved PEC stability, the drop in photocurrent of Co–Pi/CdSe/TiO2 nanowire arrays photoelectrode is about 10% after 1 h illumination, because of the addition of the Co–Pi film protecting the light absorber CdSe/TiO2 from photocorrosion. The enhanced PEC performance mechanism of triple hybrid photoanode is also discussed in this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11574081).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Synergetic Innovation Center for Quantum Effects and Application, Key Laboratory of Low-dimensional Quantum Structures and Quantum Control of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, People’s Republic of China

    Zhou Cao, Yanling Yin, Wenjun Yang, Gang Zhao, Yahui Liu, Yulan Zhou, Yuehua Peng, Weike Wang, Weichang Zhou & Dongsheng Tang

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  1. Zhou Cao
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  2. Yanling Yin
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Correspondence to Dongsheng Tang.

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Cao, Z., Yin, Y., Yang, W. et al. Amorphous Co–Pi anchored on CdSe/TiO2 nanowire arrays for efficient photoelectrochemical hydrogen production. J Mater Sci 54, 3284–3293 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-3079-5

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