Black Si-doped TiO2 nanotube photoanode for high-efficiency photoelectrochemical water splitting

Zhenbiao Dong; Dongyan Ding; Ting Li; Congqin Ning

doi:10.1039/c8ra00021b

Black Si-doped TiO₂ nanotube photoanode for high-efficiency photoelectrochemical water splitting

RSC Adv. 2018 Feb 2;8(11):5652-5660. doi: 10.1039/c8ra00021b.

Authors

Zhenbiao Dong¹, Dongyan Ding¹, Ting Li¹, Congqin Ning²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Electronic Materials and Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200240 China dyding@sjtu.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai 200050 China.

Abstract

Black Si-doped TiO₂ (Ti-Si-O) nanotubes were fabricated through Zn metal reduction of the Ti-Si-O nanotubes on Ti-Si alloy in an argon atmosphere. The nanotubes were used as a photoanode for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Both Si element and Ti³⁺/oxygen vacancies were introduced into the black Ti-Si-O nanotubes, which improved optical absorption and facilitated the separation of the photogenerated electron-hole pairs. The photoconversion efficiency could reach 1.22%, which was 7.18 times the efficiency of undoped TiO₂. It demonstrated that a Si element and Ti³⁺/oxygen vacancy co-doping strategy could offer an effective method for fabricating a high-performance TiO₂-based nanostructure photoanode for improving PEC water splitting.