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Boric acid assisted synthesis of WO3 nanostructures with highly reactive (002) facet and enhanced photoelectrocatalytic activity

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Abstract

This article describes the synthesis of monoclinic WO3 nanostructures with highly reactive (002) facets exposed through a facile hydrothermal method using boric acid as the guiding agent. The obtained WO3 plate films exhibit an excellent photocurrent density of 1.64 mA/cm2 at 1.2 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) and an IPCE value of 66.7% at 355 nm at a bias of 0.8 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). Furthermore, a maximum 2.8-time higher formic acid yields was obtained in a versatile photoanode-driven PEC CO2 reduction system. The pronounced enhancement in photoelectrocatalytic activity can be attributed to the reduced recombination of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, longer electron lifetime, larger photogenerated carrier density, higher reactivity for water oxidation and more effective production of active oxygen species on exposed (002) facets, which were obtained through the capping effect of boric acid. This work provides a facile and promising approach to synthesize the specific facet-exposed photocatalysts with better photoelectrochemical performance.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (21471054), Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 2015JJ2043) and Science and Technology Planning project of Hengyang (No. 2014KJ24).

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Author notes

  1. Faqi Zhan and Wenhua Liu have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Faqi Zhan, Wenhua Liu, Wenzhang Li, Jie Li & Qiong Liu

  2. College of Resources and Environment, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, 410128, China

    Yahui Yang

  3. Department of Chemistry, University College London, 20 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AJ, UK

    Yaomin Li

  4. Department of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Hunan Institute of Technology, Hengyang, 421002, China

    Xinde Tang

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  1. Faqi Zhan
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Correspondence to Jie Li.

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Zhan, F., Liu, W., Li, W. et al. Boric acid assisted synthesis of WO3 nanostructures with highly reactive (002) facet and enhanced photoelectrocatalytic activity. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 28, 13836–13845 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-017-7230-x

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