A Synergistic Interaction Between Isolated Au Nanoparticles And Oxygen Vacancies In An Amorphous Black Tio2 Nanoporous Film: Toward Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

Abstract

Herein, we explore a strategy for significantly enhancing the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting efficiency by means of a synergistic interaction between plasmonic Au nanoparticles (NPs) and oxygen vacancies in an amorphous black TiO2 (A-B-TiO2) nanoporous film. The interaction between plasmonic metals and semiconductor substrates was investigated, for the first time, showing that A-B-TiO2 would be a better support for plasmonic Au NPs than pristine TiO2 for plasmon-enhanced PEC water splitting. The rationally designed Au@A-B-TiO2 heterostructure significantly increases the plasmonic effect of Au NPs and consequently improves hot electron injection from Au to A-B-TiO2, boosting the separation efficiency of hot electron/hole pairs and leading to considerably improved water splitting performance under solar light irradiation. As a proof-of-concept, the Au@A-B-TiO2 photoelectrode exhibits a photocurrent density of 2.82 mA cm-2 at 1.23 V vs. RHE under AM 1.5G illumination, which is much higher than those of the state-of-the-art Au-TiO2 photoelectrodes for PEC water splitting.

Publication Date

1-1-2018

Publication Title

Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Volume

6

Issue

27

Number of Pages

12978-12984

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ta04621b

Socpus ID

85049876053 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85049876053

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