Bismuth vanadate photoelectrodes with high photovoltage behave as photoanode and photocathode in photoelectrochemical cells for water splitting.

Abstract

Using dual-photoelectrode photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices based on earth-abundant metal oxides for unbiased water splitting is an attractive means of producing green H2 fuel, but is challenging, owing to low photovoltages generated by PEC cells. This problem can be solved by coupling n-type BiVO4 with n-type Bi4V2O11 to create a virtual p/n junction due to the formation of a hole-inversion layer at the semiconductor interface. Thus, photoelectrodes with high photovoltage outputs were synthesized. The photoelectrodes exhibited features of pand n-type semiconductors when illuminated under an applied bias, suggesting their use as photoanode and photocathode in a dual-photoelectrode PEC cell. This concept was proved by connecting a 1 mol% W-doped BiVO4/Bi4V2O11 photoanode with an undoped BiVO4/Bi4V2O11 photocathode, which produced a high photovoltage of 1.54 V, sufficient to drive standalone water splitting with 0.95% efficiency.