Issue 3, 2018

A precious metal-free solar water splitting cell with a bifunctional cobalt phosphide electrocatalyst and doubly promoted bismuth vanadate photoanode

Abstract

A bifunctional cobalt phosphide (CoP) electrocatalyst is applied to a doubly promoted BiVO4 photoanode as an oxygen evolution as well as to a cathode as a hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst to establish a photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting cell made of only earth abundant elements without any precious metals. Although the intrinsic HER activity of CoP is lower than Pt/C, CoP can replace Pt as the cathode of PEC water splitting cells without any significant loss in performance. During the water splitting reaction, the cathode remains as CoP, but CoP loaded on the BiVO4 photoanode turns into amorphous CoOx–HPOy with its chemical state and performance very similar to those of well-known cobalt phosphate electrocatalysts. A tandem cell composed of CoP/hydrogen-treated, 1% Mo-doped BiVO4 as the photoanode, a CoP/Ni foam as the cathode and a 2-piece, series connected crystalline Si solar cell as the bias power generator demonstrates stable unassisted water splitting with a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 5.3% under simulated solar light, which represents the highest among reported precious metal-free unassisted solar water splitting devices.

Graphical abstract: A precious metal-free solar water splitting cell with a bifunctional cobalt phosphide electrocatalyst and doubly promoted bismuth vanadate photoanode

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 Oct 2017
Accepted
13 Dec 2017
First published
13 Dec 2017

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2018,6, 1266-1274

A precious metal-free solar water splitting cell with a bifunctional cobalt phosphide electrocatalyst and doubly promoted bismuth vanadate photoanode

J. H. Kim, S. Han, Y. H. Jo, Y. Bak and J. S. Lee, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2018, 6, 1266 DOI: 10.1039/C7TA09134F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements