Issue 8, 2015

Photoanodic and photocathodic behaviour of La5Ti2CuS5O7 electrodes in the water splitting reaction

Abstract

The particulate semiconductor La5Ti2CuS5O7 (LTC) with a band gap energy of 1.9 eV functioned as either a photocathode or a photoanode when embedded onto Au or Ti metal layers, respectively. By applying an LTC/Au photocathode and LTC/Ti photoanode to, respectively, photoelectrochemical (PEC) water reduction and oxidation concurrently, zero-bias overall water splitting was accomplished under visible light irradiation. The band structures of LTC/Au and LTC/Ti calculated using a semiconductor device simulator (AFORS-HET) confirmed the critical role of the solid/solid junction of the metal back contact in the charge separation and PEC properties of LTC photoelectrodes. The prominently long lifetime of photoexcited charge carriers in LTC, confirmed by transient absorption spectroscopy, allowed the utilization of both photoexcited electrons and holes depending on the band structure at the solid/solid junction.

Graphical abstract: Photoanodic and photocathodic behaviour of La5Ti2CuS5O7 electrodes in the water splitting reaction

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
14 abr. 2015
Accepted
11 jun. 2015
First published
11 jun. 2015
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2015,6, 4513-4518

Photoanodic and photocathodic behaviour of La5Ti2CuS5O7 electrodes in the water splitting reaction

G. Ma, Y. Suzuki, R. B. Singh, A. Iwanaga, Y. Moriya, T. Minegishi, J. Liu, T. Hisatomi, H. Nishiyama, M. Katayama, K. Seki, A. Furube, T. Yamada and K. Domen, Chem. Sci., 2015, 6, 4513 DOI: 10.1039/C5SC01344E

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements