Abstract
Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) is a promising photoanode material for efficient photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, whereas its performance is inhibited by detrimental surface states. To solve the problem, herein, a low-cost organic molecule 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid (BTC) is selected for surface passivation of BiVO4 photoanodes (BVOs), which also provides bonding sites for Co2+ to anchor, resulting in a Co-BTC-BVO photoanode. Owing to its strong coordination with metal ions, BTC not only passivates surface states of BVO, but also provides bonding between BVO and catalytic active sites (Co2+) to form a molecular cocatalyst. Computational study and interfacial charge kinetic investigation reveal that chemical bonding formed at the interface greatly suppresses charge recombination and accelerates charge transfer. The obtained Co-BTC-BVO photoanode exhibits a photocurrent density of 4.82 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) and a low onset potential of 0.22 VRHE under AM 1.5 G illumination, which ranks among the best photoanodes coupled with Co-based cocatalysts. This work presents a novel selection of passivation layers and emphasizes the significance of interfacial chemical bonding for the construction of efficient photoanodes.
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Acknowledgements
The authors kindly acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51672173, U1733130); Shanghai Science and Technology Committee (Nos. 21ZR1435700, 18520744700, and 18JC1410500); and Shanghai Jiao Tong University Medical Engineering Cross Research Program (No. YG2023ZD18). The computations in this paper were run on the Siyuan-1 cluster supported by the Center for High Performance Computing at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
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Lin, J., Li, X., Wang, Z. et al. Organic ligand nanoarchitectonics for BiVO4 photoanodes surface passivation and cocatalyst grafting. Nano Res. 17, 3667–3674 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6262-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6262-1