Enhanced water splitting at thin film tungsten trioxide photoanodes bearing plasmonic gold-polyoxometalate particles

Renata Solarska; Krzysztof Bienkowski; Sylwia Zoladek; Aldona Majcher; Tomasz Stefaniuk; Pawel J Kulesza; Jan Augustynski

doi:10.1002/anie.201408374

Enhanced water splitting at thin film tungsten trioxide photoanodes bearing plasmonic gold-polyoxometalate particles

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2014 Dec 15;53(51):14196-200. doi: 10.1002/anie.201408374. Epub 2014 Oct 21.

Authors

Renata Solarska¹, Krzysztof Bienkowski, Sylwia Zoladek, Aldona Majcher, Tomasz Stefaniuk, Pawel J Kulesza, Jan Augustynski

Affiliation

¹ Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw, Pasteura 1, 02-093 Warsaw (Poland). rsolarska@chem.uw.edu.pl.

PMID: 25332175
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201408374

Abstract

Tungsten trioxide (WO3) is one of a few stable semiconductor materials liable to produce solar fuel by photoelectrochemical water splitting. To enhance its visible light conversion efficiency, we incorporated plasmonic gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) derivatized with polyoxometalate (H3PMo12O40) species into WO3. The combined plasmonic and catalytic effect of Au NPs anchored to the WO3 surface resulted in a large increase of water photooxidation currents. Shielding the Au NPs with polyoxometalates appears to be an effective means to avoid formation of recombination centers at the photoanode surface.

Keywords: Keggin-type structures; plasmonic gold nanoparticles; polyoxometalates; solar energy conversion; tungsten trioxide.