Surface defect passivation of Ta3 N5 photoanode via pyridine grafting for enhanced photoelectrochemical performance

The Journal of Chemical Physics
Fan LiHongqiang Wang

Abstract

Tantalum nitride (Ta3N5) is a promising photoanode material for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, while the Ta3N5/Ta photoanode synthesized via general thermal oxidation and nitridation on a Ta foil method usually has serious carrier recombination at the surface, which usually reduces the PEC activities. Herein, we demonstrate an efficient strategy of decorating pyridine, a small organic molecule at the surface of the Ta3N5/Ta photoanode, to alleviate the surface recombination. Such decoration yields a stable photocurrent density of 4.4 mA cm-2 at 1.23 VRHE under AM 1.5G (air mass 1.5 global, 100 mW cm-2) simulated sunlight, which is about 1.4 times higher than that of Ta3N5/Ta without modification, and the photocurrent density still remained ∼100% of its original value after a 5 h stability test. Further characterization of the incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency and absorbed photon-to-current efficiency of the pyridine/Ta3N5/Ta photoanode showed a significant increase to 62% and 72% at 500 nm, respectively. The enhanced pyridine/Ta3N5/Ta PEC performance can be attributed to minimizing the density of nitrogen vacancies due to the passivation of pyridine grafting, which results in the decreased recombinat...Continue Reading

References

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Aug 3, 2010·Angewandte Chemie·Hongqiang WangNaoto Koshizaki
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Feb 7, 2012·Journal of the American Chemical Society·Benjamin KlahrJuan Bisquert
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Dec 23, 2017·Journal of the American Chemical Society·Kara KearneyElif Ertekin

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Citations

Jul 10, 2021·The Journal of Chemical Physics·Victor BatistaDunwei Wang

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