Contrasting Transient Photocurrent Characteristics for Thin Films of Vacuum-Doped “Grey” TiO2 and “Grey” Nb2O5



Araujo, Moises, Gromboni, Murilo, Marken, Frank, Parker, Stephen, Peter, Laurence, Turner, Josh, Aspinall, Helen, Black, Kate ORCID: 0000-0003-3638-6518 and Mascaro, Lucia H
(2018) Contrasting Transient Photocurrent Characteristics for Thin Films of Vacuum-Doped “Grey” TiO2 and “Grey” Nb2O5. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 237. pp. 339-352.

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Abstract

Photo-catalytic performance for oxide films, here for inkjet-printed TiO2 (ca. 1 μm thickness on FTO) and for spray-pyrolysis-coated Nb2O5 (ca. 1 μm thickness on FTO), is affected by oxygen vacancies that form during vacuum-heat treatment at 550 °C. The effects of the oxygen vacancies are associated with formation of Ti(III) and Nb(IV) sites, respectively, and therefore optically visible as “grey” coloration. Photo-electrochemical light-on-off transient experiments are performed in the limit of thin film photoanodes, where front and back illumination result in the same photo-current responses (i.e. with negligible effects from internal light absorption gradients). It is shown that generally the magnitude of photo-currents correlates linearly with light intensity, which is indicative of dominant “photo-capacitive” behaviour. At an applied voltage of 0.4 V vs. SCE (in the plateau region of the photo-current responses) the potential and also the pH (going from 1.0 M KOH to 0.1 M HClO4 in the presence of methanol quencher) have no significant effect on photo-currents; that is, surface chemical/kinetic effects appear to be unimportant and interfacial hole transfer may be rate limiting. Under these conditions (and based on a simplistic mechanistic model) changes in photo-currents introduced by oxygen vacancy doping (detrimental for TiO2 and beneficial for Nb2O5) are assigned primarily to changes in electron mobility.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Photosynthesis, Water splitting, Thin film oxide, Digital simulation, Transient
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 07 Jun 2018 10:48
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 01:33
DOI: 10.1016/j.apcatb.2018.05.065
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3022009