Quasi-1D hyperbranched WO₃ nanostructures for low-voltage photoelectrochemical water splitting

Abstract

Arrays of hyperbranched high aspect ratio mesostructures are grown by pulsed laser deposition, through a self-assembly process from the gas phase. These hierarchical arrays are used successfully as photoanodes for the photoelectrochemical splitting of water, exhibit ing an onset potential as low as 0.4 V vs RHE and saturation current densities up to 1.8 5 mA/cm 2 at 0.8 V vs RHE. While the latter is similar to the state of the art values for WO 3 nanostructured photoanodes, both the onset and saturation voltages are significantly lower than any other report so far. This peculiar behavior is attributed to the hyperbranched structure and to its excellent optical and electronic properties.

Facile Fabrication of Sandwich Structured WO3 Nanoplate Arrays for Efficient Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

“…Compared to the planar bulk architecture, nanostructured configurations (such as nanowire, nanorod, nanosheet) offer advantages in PEC applications due to the efficient light absorption, decreased electron-hole recombination, and high electrochemically active surface area. [22][23][24][25][26] In the past several years, the apparent progress has been achieved for nanostructured WO 3 photoanodes for PEC water splitting. Su et al prepared vertically aligned WO 3 nanowire and nanoflake arrays, which were beneficial to the efficient charge transfer.…”

Selective detection of naphthalene with nanostructured WO<sub>3</sub> gas sensors prepared by pulsed laser deposition

“…Pulsed laser deposition is a method for depositing a variety of materials ranging from epitaxial thin films (Hussain et al, 2005) to highly porous nanostructured layers (Balandeh et al, 2015). Porous nanostructured layers have been studied especially in the context of gas sensing materials (Caricato et al, 2009;Nam et al, 2006).…”

Separation of valence states in thin films with mixed V2O5 and V7O16 phases

“…Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a very versatile method for depositing different types of metal oxide layers, from epitaxial high quality layers [10] to porous nanostructured layers [11]. The big advantage of the method is the easy control of layer morphology and stoichiometry by varying the deposition parameters during the process.…”