Engineering the heterogeneous interfaces of inverse opals to boost charge transfer for efficient solar water splitting

Photoelectrodes Based upon Mo:BiVO₄ Inverse Opals for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

D rawing inspiration from nature, photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting based on Fujishima Honda effect has been demonstrated as a feasible and cost-effective realization of an artificial analogy to photosynthesis. 7 With the goal of solar energy harvesting and storage, semiconductor photoelectrodes hold great promise to be an attractive alternative to the naturally occurring photosystems....

Single-crystalline, wormlike hematite photoanodes for efficient solar water splitting

A hematite photoanode showing a stable, record-breaking performance of 4.32 mA/cm² photoelectrochemical water oxidation current at 1.23 V vs. RHE under simulated 1-sun (100 mW/cm²) irradiation is reported. This photocurrent corresponds to ca. 34% of the maximum theoretical limit expected for hematite with a band gap of 2.1 V. The photoanode produced stoichiometric hydrogen and oxygen gases in a...

Plasmonic nanoparticle-semiconductor composites for efficient solar water splitting

Solar water splitting cells.

Energy harvested directly from sunlight offers a desirable approach toward fulfilling, with minimal environmental impact, the need for clean energy. Solar energy is a decentralized and inexhaustible natural resource, with the magnitude of the available solar power striking the earth’s surface at any one instant equal to 130 million 500 MW power plants.1 However, several important goals need to ...

Efficient solar water-splitting using a nanocrystalline CoO photocatalyst.

The generation of hydrogen from water using sunlight could potentially form the basis of a clean and renewable source of energy. Various water-splitting methods have been investigated previously, but the use of photocatalysts to split water into stoichiometric amounts of H2 and O2 (overall water splitting) without the use of external bias or sacrificial reagents is of particular interest becaus...