Amorphous ferric oxide as a hole-extraction and transfer layer on nanoporous bismuth vanadate photoanode for water oxidation

An amorphous ferric oxide layer was prepared on a bismuth vanadate photoanode. This resulted in Received 27 February 2017 improved charge carrier separation and surface catalytic performance compared with the photoanode without the oxide layer. The photocurrent of the oxide-layer-containing photoanode was 2.52 mA/cm(2) at 1.23 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode, in potassium phosphate buffer (0.5 mol/L, pH = 7.0). The amorphous ferric oxide layer on the photoanode contained low-valence-state iron species (Fell), which enabled efficient hole extraction and transfer. (C) 2017, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Acadeniy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.