Unbiased Spontaneous Solar Fuel Production using Stable LaFeO3 Photoelectrode

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting to produce solar fuel (hydrogen) has long been considered as the Holy Grail to a carbon-free hydrogen economy. The PEC concept to produce solar fuel is to emulate the natural photosynthesis using man made materials. The bottle-neck in realising the concept...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2018-02, Vol.8 (1), p.1-9, Article 3501
Main Authors: Pawar, Govinder S., Tahir, Asif A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
140/133
639/301/299/890
639/4077/909/4101/4102
Conduction
Fossil fuels
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hydrogen
multidisciplinary
Photosynthesis
Pyrolysis
Redox potential
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting to produce solar fuel (hydrogen) has long been considered as the Holy Grail to a carbon-free hydrogen economy. The PEC concept to produce solar fuel is to emulate the natural photosynthesis using man made materials. The bottle-neck in realising the concept practically has been the difficulty in identifying stable low-cost semiconductors that meet the thermodynamic and kinetic criteria for photoelectrolysis. We have fabricated a novel p-type LaFeO 3 photoelectrode using an inexpensive and scalable spray pyrolysis method. Our nanostructured LaFeO 3 photoelectrode results in spontaneous hydrogen evolution from water without any external bias applied. Moreover, the photoelectrode has a faradaic efficiency of 30% and showed excellent stability over 21 hours. From optical and impedance data, the constructed band diagram showed that LaFeO 3 can straddle the water redox potential with the conduction band at −1.11 V above the reduction potential of hydrogen. We have fabricated a low cost LaFeO 3 photoelectrode that can spontaneously produce hydrogen from water using sunlight, making it a strong future candidate for renewable hydrogen generation.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-21821-z