Issue 8, 2020

A solar-responsive zinc oxide photoanode for solar-photon-harvester photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells

Abstract

A highly efficient, nanostructured, solar-responsive zinc-oxide (SRZO) photoanode has been achieved by utilization of a versatile solution precursor plasma spray (SPPS) deposition technique. For the first time, it is demonstrated that a front-illumination type SRZO photo-anode fabricated with a ZnO/stainless steel (SS-304) configuration can generate an enhanced photo-electrochemical (PEC) current of 390 μA cm−2, under solar radiation from a solar simulator with an AM1.5 global filter (∼1 sun). The SRZO electrode displayed a solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiency of 2.32% when investigated for H2 evolution in a PEC cell. These electrodes exhibited a maximum peak efficiency of 86% using 320 nm photons during incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency measurement. Interestingly, the film lattice of SRZO showed a significant red-shift of 0.37 eV in the ZnO band gap thereby providing solar photon absorptivity to SRZO. Further, an enhanced charge transport property by virtue of increased donor density (∼4.11 × 1017 cm−3) has been observed, which is higher by an order of magnitude than that of its bulk counterpart. Efficient optical absorption of solar photons and higher donor-density of SRZO have been thus attributed to its superior PEC performance.

Graphical abstract: A solar-responsive zinc oxide photoanode for solar-photon-harvester photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
19 fev 2020
Accepted
08 iyn 2020
First published
08 iyn 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale Adv., 2020,2, 3350-3357

A solar-responsive zinc oxide photoanode for solar-photon-harvester photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells

R. Dom, S. Govindarajan, S. V. Joshi and P. H. Borse, Nanoscale Adv., 2020, 2, 3350 DOI: 10.1039/D0NA00139B

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