A Titanium-Doped SiOx Passivation Layer for Greatly Enhanced Performance of a Hematite-Based Photoelectrochemical System

Hyo-Jin Ahn; Ki-Yong Yoon; Myung-Jun Kwak; Ji-Hyun Jang

doi:10.1002/anie.201603666

A Titanium-Doped SiOx Passivation Layer for Greatly Enhanced Performance of a Hematite-Based Photoelectrochemical System

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2016 Aug 16;55(34):9922-6. doi: 10.1002/anie.201603666. Epub 2016 Jun 30.

Authors

Hyo-Jin Ahn^{1

2}, Ki-Yong Yoon^{1

2}, Myung-Jun Kwak^{1

2}, Ji-Hyun Jang^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials, Institute for Basic Science IBS, Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea.
² School of Energy & Chemical Engineering, Low Dimensional Carbon Materials Center, UNIST, Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea.
³ Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials, Institute for Basic Science IBS, Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea. clau@unist.ac.kr.
⁴ School of Energy & Chemical Engineering, Low Dimensional Carbon Materials Center, UNIST, Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea. clau@unist.ac.kr.

PMID: 27358249
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201603666

Abstract

This study introduces an in situ fabrication of nanoporous hematite with a Ti-doped SiOx passivation layer for a high-performance water-splitting system. The nanoporous hematite with a Ti-doped SiOx layer (Ti-(SiOx /np-Fe2 O3 )) has a photocurrent density of 2.44 mA cm(-2) at 1.23 VRHE and 3.70 mA cm(-2) at 1.50 VRHE . When a cobalt phosphate co-catalyst was applied to Ti-(SiOx /np-Fe2 O3 ), the photocurrent density reached 3.19 mA cm(-2) at 1.23 VRHE with stability, which shows great potential of the use of the Ti-doped SiOx layer with a synergistic effect of decreased charge recombination, the increased number of active sites, and the reduced hole-diffusion pathway from the hematite to the electrolyte.

Keywords: conductive SiOx layers; hematite; nanoporous structures; passivation layers; photoelectrochemical cells.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't