| Affiliation: | 1. State Key Laboratory for Oxo Synthesis & Selective Oxidation, National Engineering Research Center for Fine Petrochemical Intermediates, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS, Lanzhou, 730000 China University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 China;2. State Key Laboratory for Oxo Synthesis & Selective Oxidation, National Engineering Research Center for Fine Petrochemical Intermediates, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS, Lanzhou, 730000 China;3. College of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, 730000 China |
| Abstract: | Understanding the origin of formation and active sites of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) cocatalysts is highly required for solar photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices that generate hydrogen efficiently from water. Herein, we employed a simple pH-modulated method for in situ growth of FeNi oxyhydroxide ultrathin layers on BiVO4 photoanodes, resulting in one of the highest currently known PEC activities of 5.8 mA cm−2 (1.23 VRHE, AM 1.5 G) accompanied with an excellent stability. More importantly, both comparative experiments and density functional theory (DFT) studies clearly reveal that the selective formation of Bi−O−Fe interfacial bonds mainly contributes the enhanced OER activities, while the construction of V−O−Ni interfacial bonds effectively restrains the dissolution of V5+ ions and promotes the OER stability. Thereby, the synergy between iron and nickel of FeNi oxyhydroxides significantly improved the PEC water oxidation properties of BiVO4 photoanodes. |
