Dual Effects of Nanostructuring and Oxygen Vacancy on Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation Activity of Superstructured and Defective Hematite Nanorods |
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| Authors: | Lei Wang Kyle Marcus Xiaojuan Huang Zhiqiang Shen Yang Yang Yingpu Bi |
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| Affiliation: | 1. State Key Laboratory for Oxo Synthesis and Selective Oxidation, National Engineering Research Center for Fine Petrochemical Intermediates, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China;2. NanoScience Technology Center, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA |
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| Abstract: | An Ar atmospheric treatment is rationally used to etch and activate hematite nanoflakes (NFs) as photoanodes toward enhanced photoelectrochemical water oxidation. The formation of a highly ordered hematite nanorods (NRs) array containing a high density of oxygen vacancy is successfully prepared through in situ reduction of NFs in Ar atmosphere. Furthermore, a hematite (104) plane and an iron suboxide layer at the absorber/back‐contact interface are formed. The material defects produced by a thermal oxidation method can be critical for the morphology transformation from 2D NFs to 1D NRs. The resulting hematite NR photoanodes show high efficiency toward solar water splitting with improved light harvesting capabilities, leading to an enhanced photoresponse due to the artificially formed oxygen vacancies. |
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| Keywords: | defects engineering enhanced light absorption hematite nanorods water splitting |
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