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Chemically synthesized facet-controlled visible light active BiVO4 thin films for photoelectrochemical water splitting

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Abstract

The facile and cost-effective chemical bath deposition (CBD) method is used to synthesize highly photoactive facet-controlled bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) thin films on glass and stainless steel (SS) substrates. The facet-controlled BiVO4 thin films are synthesized by variation in anionic precursor with fine tuning of chemical bath pH from alkaline to acidic media. The variation of anionic precursor evolves the morphology of BiVO4 from dispersed nanoparticles to faceted microcrystals. Furthermore, the fine-tuning of chemical bath pH leads to the well-defined octahedral BiVO4 microcrystals. Compared to dispersed nanoparticulate BiVO4 photoanodes, the octahedral BiVO4 photoanodes demonstrated superior photocurrent density of 2.75 mA cm−2 (at 1.23 V vs. RHE), good photostability and charge separation efficiency (45.5%) owing to their excellent PEC reaction kinetics. The present study underscores the usefulness of the CBD method for facet-controlled synthesis of semiconducting thin films for different photo-functional applications.

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Author contributions

SPK: investigation, methodology, writing—original manuscript, YMC: validation, VVM: validation, PDS: formal analysis, SVT: software, SAP: software, UMP: data curation, KVG: writing—review and editing, DBM: resources, AUP: resources, JLG: conceptualization, supervision, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing.

Data availability

The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within this paper and its Supplementary Information files.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a statutory body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, for awarding the Ramanujan Fellowship (SB/S2/RJN-090/2017) and core research grant (CRG/2019/006059). The authors thank D. Y. Patil Education Society, Kasaba Bawada, Kolhapur, for financial support through research project sanction No. DYPES/DU/R&D/2022/2352.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, D. Y. Patil Education Society (Deemed to Be University), Kolhapur, MS, 416 006, India

    Shirin P. Kulkarni, Yogesh M. Chitare, Vikas V. Magdum, Prashant D. Sawant, Shweta V. Talekar, Shraddha A. Pawar, Umakant M. Patil & Jayavant L. Gunjakar

  2. Energy Conversion and Storage Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, Devchand College, Arjunnagar, MS, 591 237, India

    Kishor V. Gurav

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Optoelectronic Convergence Research Centre, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, 61186, South Korea

    Dhanaji B. Malavekar

  4. Environmental and Climate Technology, Korea Institute of Energy Technology, Naju-Si, Jeollanamdo, 58219, Republic of Korea

    Amol U. Pawar

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  1. Shirin P. Kulkarni
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Correspondence to Jayavant L. Gunjakar.

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Kulkarni, S.P., Chitare, Y.M., Magdum, V.V. et al. Chemically synthesized facet-controlled visible light active BiVO4 thin films for photoelectrochemical water splitting. Appl. Phys. A 129, 876 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-023-07164-1

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