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The effects of adjusting pulse anodization parameters on the surface morphology and properties of a WO3 photoanode for photoelectrochemical water splitting

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Abstract

An ordered porous nanostructure provides a large reaction interface with an unusually high number of active sites, meaning that such a nanostructure is especially applicable to photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Therefore, we prepared WO3 films on W foil by pulsed anodization using square-pulse on/off voltage followed by calcination, and scrutinized the effects of reaction parameters—particularly the duty ratio, frequency, and F− ion content—on the surface morphology and PEC behavior of the films. The WO3 films produced with a pulsed voltage of 50 V, a duty ratio of 20%, and a pulse frequency of 200 Hz in an electrolyte of 0.06 M NH4F showed an ordered and porous morphology. WO3 films prepared under optimized conditions yielded a water splitting photocurrent density of 1.33 mA cm−2 at a bias potential of 1.2 V when exposed to AM 1.5 G 1-sun illumination in 0.5 M Na2SO4 electrolyte. The high PEC activity of the ordered porous WO3 films can be attributed to their ordered porous nanostructure, which results in a much larger surface area than in compact or disordered porous structures. Moreover, the ordered porous WO3 films also exhibited excellent stability and a high incident-photon-to-charge conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 57.8% at 350 nm and a bias potential of 1.2 V. This research demonstrates that the pulsed anodization technique allows the controlled fabrication of porous WO3 nanostructures for application in PEC water oxidation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21363006, 21503051), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi (2015GXNSFBA139029, 2016GXNSFAA380121, 2016GXNSFAA380219) and Guilin Scientific Research and Technology Development Projects (KY2015ZL109).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Electrochemical and Magnetochemical Functional Materials, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin, People’s Republic of China

    Huidan Lu & Yongping Liu

  2. College of Chemistry and Bioengineering, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin, Guilin, People’s Republic of China

    Huidan Lu, Yi Yan, Mengying Zhang, Haijun Tan, Peng Geng, Shangwang Le, Zhishu Yang & Yongping Liu

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  1. Huidan Lu
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Correspondence to Shangwang Le or Yongping Liu.

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Lu, H., Yan, Y., Zhang, M. et al. The effects of adjusting pulse anodization parameters on the surface morphology and properties of a WO3 photoanode for photoelectrochemical water splitting. J Solid State Electrochem 22, 2169–2181 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-018-3911-5

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