Development of solar fuels photoanodes through combinatorial integration of multifunctional Fe-Ce oxide coatings on BiVO4 as a function of coating composition, loading, and electrolyte

Abstract

The development of an efficient, stable photoanode to provide protons and electrons to the (photo)cathode remains a primary materials challenge in the establishment of a scalable technol. for artificial photosynthesis. The typical photoanode architecture consists of a semiconductor light absorber coated with a metal oxide that serves a combination of functions, including corrosion protection, electrocatalysis, light trapping, hole transport, and elimination of deleterious surface recombination sites. To provide a more efficient exploration of metal oxide coatings for a given light absorber, we introduce a high throughput methodol. wherein a uniform BiVO4 library is coated with multi-metal oxide coatings. This presentation will focus on the variation in performance and photo-response of integrated photoanodes consisting of BiVO4 coated with a sputter deposited Fe-Ce oxide film as a function of compn. and loading. Parallel photoanode libraries were prepd. and evaluated at pH 13 and pH 9.