Nanostar morphology of plasmonic particles strongly enhances photoelectrochemical water splitting of TiO2 nanorods with superior incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency in visible/near-infrared region

By Wang, Lingyun; Wang, Yu; Schmuki, Patrik; Kment, Stepan; Zboril, Radek
Published in Electrochimica Acta 2018

Abstract

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting with TiO2 photoanodes is a promising technique for converting solar energy into a clean chemical energy. The key drawbacks of titania involve still a low PEC performance and its large band gap energy allowing absorption only in the UVregion. Plasmonic nanostructures such as Au and Ag represent a powerful tool towards the light harvesting enhancement with the efficiency dependent on their size and loading. Here, the unique nanostar morphology of plasmonic particles is presented as a new principal factor allowing the significant improvement of the incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) and the extension of light absorption over the broadband UV

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