Photoelectrochemical Water-Splitting Using CuO-Based Electrodes for Hydrogen Production: A Review

Roozbeh Siavash Moakhar; Seyed Morteza Hosseini-Hosseinabad; Saeid Masudy-Panah; Ashkan Seza; Mahsa Jalali; Hesam Fallah-Arani; Fatemeh Dabir; Somayeh Gholipour; Yaser Abdi; Mohiedin Bagheri-Hariri; Nastaran Riahi-Noori; Yee-Fun Lim; Anders Hagfeldt; Michael Saliba

doi:10.1002/adma.202007285

Photoelectrochemical Water-Splitting Using CuO-Based Electrodes for Hydrogen Production: A Review

Adv Mater. 2021 Aug;33(33):e2007285. doi: 10.1002/adma.202007285. Epub 2021 Jun 12.

Authors

Roozbeh Siavash Moakhar^{1

2}, Seyed Morteza Hosseini-Hosseinabad³, Saeid Masudy-Panah^{4

5}, Ashkan Seza^{2

3}, Mahsa Jalali¹, Hesam Fallah-Arani², Fatemeh Dabir², Somayeh Gholipour⁶, Yaser Abdi⁶, Mohiedin Bagheri-Hariri⁷, Nastaran Riahi-Noori², Yee-Fun Lim⁸, Anders Hagfeldt⁹, Michael Saliba^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Bioengineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 0E9, Canada.
² Non-Metallic Materials Research Group, Niroo Research Institute (NRI), Tehran, 14686-13113, Iran.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Azadi Ave, Tehran, 11155-9466, Iran.
⁴ Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 119260, Singapore.
⁵ Low Energy Electronic Systems (LEES), Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, Singapore, 38602, Singapore.
⁶ Nanophysics Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Tehran, Tehran, 14395-547, Iran.
⁷ Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase flow Technology, Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Ohio University, Athens, OH, 45701, USA.
⁸ Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), 2 Fusionopolis Way, Innovis, #08-03, Singapore, 138634, Singapore.
⁹ Laboratory of Photomolecular Science, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL SB-ISIC-LSPM, Station 6, Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland.
¹⁰ Institute for Photovoltaics, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 47, D-70569, Stuttgart, Germany.
¹¹ Helmholtz Young Investigator Group FRONTRUNNER IEK5-Photovoltaik, Forschungszentrum, D-52425, Jülich, Germany.

PMID: 34117806
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202007285

Abstract

The cost-effective, robust, and efficient electrocatalysts for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water-splitting has been extensively studied over the past decade to address a solution for the energy crisis. The interesting physicochemical properties of CuO have introduced this promising photocathodic material among the few photocatalysts with a narrow bandgap. This photocatalyst has a high activity for the PEC hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under simulated sunlight irradiation. Here, the recent advancements of CuO-based photoelectrodes, including undoped CuO, doped CuO, and CuO composites, in the PEC water-splitting field, are comprehensively studied. Moreover, the synthesis methods, characterization, and fundamental factors of each classification are discussed in detail. Apart from the exclusive characteristics of CuO-based photoelectrodes, the PEC properties of CuO/2D materials, as groups of the growing nanocomposites in photocurrent-generating devices, are discussed in separate sections. Regarding the particular attention paid to the CuO heterostructure photocathodes, the PEC water splitting application is reviewed and the properties of each group such as electronic structures, defects, bandgap, and hierarchical structures are critically assessed.

Keywords: cupric oxide (CuO); heterojunctions; hydrogen evolution; photocurrent density; photoelectrochemical water splitting.

Publication types

Review