The
design and decoration of plasmonic metal hybrid photoanodes
provide an effective strategy for highly efficient photoelectrochemical
(PEC) water splitting. In this work, an Au nanoparticle (NP) decorated
highly ordered ZnO/CdS nanotube arrays (ZnO/CdS/Au NTAs) photoanode
has been rationally designed and successfully synthesized. By virtue
of the favorable band alignment and specific nanotube structure of
ZnO/CdS as well as the surface plasmonic effect of Au NPs, the ZnO/CdS/Au
NTAs photoanode shows significantly enhanced PEC performance as compared
to the ZnO/CdS/Au and ZnO/CdS nanorod arrays (NRAs). Impressively,
the optimized ZnO/CdS/Au NTAs photoanode exhibits the highest photocurrent
density of 21.53 mA/cm2 at 1.2 V vs Ag/AgCl and 3.45% photoconversion
efficiency (PCE) among the parallel photoanodes under visible light
illumination (λ > 420 nm).
BiOBr nanoplate (NP) decorated vertically aligned ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs) have been successfully synthesized by a facile and cost-effective solvothermal process.
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