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Photoelectrochemical behavior of molybdenum-modified nanoparticulate hematite electrodes

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Abstract

The preparation of molybdenum-modified hematite electrodes by means of chemical bath deposition and their photoelectrochemical behavior toward water oxidation are reported in this work. The addition of a molybdenum precursor to the bath solution for hematite deposition induces a remarkable change of morphology in the resulting film from (110)-oriented nanorods to polyhedral nanoparticles. Despite the resulting loss of order, by controlling the Mo/Fe molar ratio in the bath solution, a significant improvement of the water oxidation photocurrent is achieved compared to nanorod pristine hematite electrodes. Such a (photo)electrochemical enhancement is mainly explained by an effective surface state passivation in Mo-modified hematite films. FE-SEM, TEM, XRD, and XPS were employed for electrode structural and morphological characterization.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the MINECO of Spain (project MAT2015-71727-R FONDOS FEDER). A. C. wants to thank the University of Alicante for a predoctoral grant. D. C. is also grateful to MINECO for the award of an FPI grant.

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  1. Departament de Química Física i Institut Universitari d’Electroquímica, Universitat d’Alacant, Apartat E-99, E-03080, Alacant, Spain

    Ainhoa Cots, Dejan Cibrev, Pedro Bonete & Roberto Gómez

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  1. Ainhoa Cots
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  2. Dejan Cibrev
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  3. Pedro Bonete
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  4. Roberto Gómez
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Correspondence to Roberto Gómez.

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Cots, A., Cibrev, D., Bonete, P. et al. Photoelectrochemical behavior of molybdenum-modified nanoparticulate hematite electrodes. J Solid State Electrochem 22, 149–156 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-017-3729-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-017-3729-6

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