Cupric oxide nanowire photocathodes stabilized by modification with aluminum

The use of sunlight for photoelectrochemically splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen has aroused great interest in the last decades. Photocathode materials based on cupric oxide (CuO) are promising large-scale, widespread photoelectrochemical due to high Earth-abundance copper, suitable band gap, favorable alignment generation. main challenge development practical CuO photocathodes is enhance stability against photocorrosion, together with increasing efficiency solar evolution. In this work, stable nanowire synthetized a straightforward scalable way by electrodeposition followed chemical oxidation thermal treatment. Subsequently, electrodes modified aluminum following two different strategies: (i) adsorption from an Al acetylacetonate solution or (ii) drop-casting containing nitrate. both cases, treatment applied after addition. nanowires (measured as percent initial photocurrent retained 20 min continuous illumination at −0.4 V vs. Ag/AgCl) enhanced 2% up 80%. amount needed modify very low strategies, indicating that operates surface level. Admittedly, these modifications improve expense photocurrent. To palliate this, addition co-catalysts should be addressed future.