Multiple synergistic effects of Zr-alloying on the phase stability and photostability of black niobium oxide nanotubes as efficient photoelectrodes for solar hydrogen production

Optimized Lithography-Free Fabrication of Sub-100 nm Nb2O5 Nanotube Films as Negative Supercapacitor Electrodes: Tuned Oxygen Vacancies and Cationic Intercalation

“…20 To this end, electrochemical anodization has a myriad of favorable characteristics such as speediness, simplicity, and the possibility of materials nanostructuring at ambient temperature. 17,28 In addition, it is a practical and sustainable approach that can be deployed on a large scale. 17,28 Eventually, to mitigate the issue of poor conductivity of Nb 2 O 5 (∼3 × 10 −6 S cm −1 ), which is crucial for the best performance in practice, the alloying strategy, in general, and, with Zr metal, in particular, were shown to boost the material's conductivity.…”

“…17,28 In addition, it is a practical and sustainable approach that can be deployed on a large scale. 17,28 Eventually, to mitigate the issue of poor conductivity of Nb 2 O 5 (∼3 × 10 −6 S cm −1 ), which is crucial for the best performance in practice, the alloying strategy, in general, and, with Zr metal, in particular, were shown to boost the material's conductivity. 17,22 Similarly, defect engineering represents a leading protocol in tailoring the band structure and tuning the material's intrinsic electronic conductivity.…”

Hydrogenated Zinc Oxide as an Alternative Low-Loss Plasmonic Material with Fano Resonance in Near-IR

“…However, reduced crystallinity, phase segregation, and alloying often constitute fabrication challenges in the case of Al. Moreover, it has been shown that hydrogen (H) doping can increase charge carriers’ density, reduce the band gap, induce valence band tailing, and enhance the overall performance of wide-band-gap complex metal oxide structures in different applications. − Also, H can be incorporated in these structures simply by annealing in H 2 gas, which greatly eases the fabrication process. Therefore, the performance of H-ZnO is worth exploring compared to the currently used materials, such as Al-doped ZnO.…”

Ternary Ti–Mo–Fe Nanotubes as Efficient Photoanodes for Solar-Assisted Water Splitting

“…Over recent decades, several studies were devoted to investigate unlimitable and friendly solar approaches for scalable hydrogen production. In this regard, photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting systems could be one of the most sustainable, renewable, and highly recommended approaches for providing green hydrogen fuel. − Besides, nanoscience has a pioneering role and a wide contribution toward these renewable energy routes. , Accordingly, researchers nowadays still devote many efforts to fabricate, develop, and optimize 1D mixed oxide nanostructures as efficient photoelectrodes for solar hydrogen generation, due to their excellent semiconducting characteristics, abundance, excellent physical and chemical stability, good charge transfer, low cost, ease of fabrication, and nontoxicity. ,,− However, the resultant efficiency so far is less than that needed. Thus, to overcome the limitations, increase efficiency, and achieve the desired characteristics, extensive research is needed to design and develop efficient photoelectrodes.…”

“…Thus, to overcome the limitations, increase efficiency, and achieve the desired characteristics, extensive research is needed to design and develop efficient photoelectrodes. Among several metal oxide photoelectrodes, titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) has some distinctive properties including high corrosion resistance, good charge transfer, being environmentally benign, and exceptional stability, validating its use in several applications, especially solar cells and photoelectrochemical water splitting. − However, some obstacles are yet to be resolved, such as limited efficiency of light utilization and the short lifetime of the photogenerated e – /h + pairs which leads to fast carriers recombination that adversely affects its performance in solar-energy-based systems. ,,− To this end, fabricating 1D nanostructured photoelectrodes (nanotubes, nanowires, and nanorods) could provide high surface area, ensuring fast charge transfer with limited carriers recombination. ,, In this sense, one of the best approaches to develop a diversity of 1D nanostructures is electrochemical anodization, which is an efficient and low-cost technique. ,,− However, doping was shown to boost the catalytic activity of TiO 2 and improve its overall performance. However, serious problems originated from some doping approaches that consider the interactions between dopant and defects and hide the essential interactions between both dopant and lattice. − Thus, the effective doping approach should include suitable elements with definite ratios, which are crucial for the resultant photoresponse. ,,, Some recent studies of 1D nanostructures of mixed oxides showed a great improvement in photoelectrochemical systems.…”