title: A tantalum nitride photoanode modified with a hole-storage layer for highly stable solar water splitting.
abstract: Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an ideal approach for renewable solar fuel production. One of the major problems is that narrow bandgap semiconductors, such as tantalum nitride, though possessing desirable band alignment for water splitting, suffer from poor photostability for water oxidation. For the first time it is shown that the presence of a ferrihydrite layer permits sustainable water oxidation at the tantalum nitride photoanode for at least 6 h with a benchmark photocurrent over 5 mA cm(-2) , whereas the bare photoanode rapidly degrades within minutes. The remarkably enhanced photostability stems from the ferrihydrite, which acts as a hole-storage layer. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that it can be a general strategy for protecting narrow bandgap semiconductors against photocorrosion in solar water splitting.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian 116023 (China) http://www.canli.dicp.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Guiji
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Jingying
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Fuxiang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jingfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Chunmei
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Shanshan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Zhiliang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Hongxian
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Can
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
keywords: electrochemistry; ferrihydrite; photochemistry; tantalum nitride; water splitting