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Nano Research 2015, 8(9): 2891-2900 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0794-y
Research Article | Issue | Published: 24 July 2015

Design of sandwich-structured ZnO/ZnS/Au photoanode for enhanced efficiency of photoelectrochemical water splitting

Show Author's Information Yichong Liu1,  Yousong Gu1,  Xiaoqin Yan1,  Zhuo Kang1,  Shengnan Lu1,  Yihui Sun1,  Yue Zhang1,2( )
State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and MaterialsSchool of Materials Science and EngineeringUniversity of Science and Technology BeijingBeijing100083China
Key Laboratory of New Energy Materials and TechnologiesUniversity of Science and Technology BeijingBeijing100083China
Keywords:
ZnO, Au, photoanode, photoelectrochemical water splitting, ZnS
Cite this article:
Liu Y, Gu Y, Yan X, et al. Design of sandwich-structured ZnO/ZnS/Au photoanode for enhanced efficiency of photoelectrochemical water splitting. Nano Research, 2015, 8(9): 2891-2900. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0794-y
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

We developed and demonstrated a ZnO/ZnS/Au composite photoanode with significantly enhanced photoelectrochemical water-splitting performance, containing a ZnS interlayer and Au nanoparticles. The solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of this ZnO/ZnS/Au heterostructure reached 0.21%, 3.5 times that of pristine ZnO. The comparison of the incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) and the photoresponse in the white and visible light regions further verified that the enhancement resulted from contributions of both UV and visible light. The modification of the Au NPs was shown to improve the photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance to both UV and visible light, as modification encouraged effective surface passivation and surface-plasmonresonance effects. The ZnS interlayer favored the movement of photogenerated electrons under UV light and hot electrons under visible light, causing their injection into ZnO; this simultaneously suppressed the electron-hole recombination at the photoanode-electrolyte interface. The optimized design of the interlayer within plasmonic metal/semiconductor composite systems, as reported here, provided a facile and compatible photoelectrode configuration, enhancing the utilization efficiency of incident light for photoelectrochemical applications.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Design of sandwich-structured ZnO/ZnS/Au photoanode for enhanced efficiency of photoelectrochemical water splitting

Show Author's information Yichong Liu1, Yousong Gu1, Xiaoqin Yan1, Zhuo Kang1, Shengnan Lu1, Yihui Sun1, Yue Zhang1,2( )
State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and MaterialsSchool of Materials Science and EngineeringUniversity of Science and Technology BeijingBeijing100083China
Key Laboratory of New Energy Materials and TechnologiesUniversity of Science and Technology BeijingBeijing100083China

Abstract

We developed and demonstrated a ZnO/ZnS/Au composite photoanode with significantly enhanced photoelectrochemical water-splitting performance, containing a ZnS interlayer and Au nanoparticles. The solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of this ZnO/ZnS/Au heterostructure reached 0.21%, 3.5 times that of pristine ZnO. The comparison of the incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) and the photoresponse in the white and visible light regions further verified that the enhancement resulted from contributions of both UV and visible light. The modification of the Au NPs was shown to improve the photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance to both UV and visible light, as modification encouraged effective surface passivation and surface-plasmonresonance effects. The ZnS interlayer favored the movement of photogenerated electrons under UV light and hot electrons under visible light, causing their injection into ZnO; this simultaneously suppressed the electron-hole recombination at the photoanode-electrolyte interface. The optimized design of the interlayer within plasmonic metal/semiconductor composite systems, as reported here, provided a facile and compatible photoelectrode configuration, enhancing the utilization efficiency of incident light for photoelectrochemical applications.

Keywords: ZnO, Au, photoanode, photoelectrochemical water splitting, ZnS

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 19 January 2015
Revised: 30 March 2015
Accepted: 14 April 2015
Published: 24 July 2015
Issue date: September 2015

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB932601), the Major Project of International Cooperation and Exchanges (No. 2012DFA50990), the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (No. B14003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51232001, 51172022, 51372023, and 31371203), the Research Fund of Co-construction Program from Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University.

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