title: Enhanced water splitting at thin film tungsten trioxide photoanodes bearing plasmonic gold-polyoxometalate particles.
abstract: Tungsten trioxide (WO3) is one of a few stable semiconductor materials liable to produce solar fuel by photoelectrochemical water splitting. To enhance its visible light conversion efficiency, we incorporated plasmonic gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) derivatized with polyoxometalate (H3PMo12O40) species into WO3. The combined plasmonic and catalytic effect of Au NPs anchored to the WO3 surface resulted in a large increase of water photooxidation currents. Shielding the Au NPs with polyoxometalates appears to be an effective means to avoid formation of recombination centers at the photoanode surface.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw, Pasteura 1, 02-093 Warsaw (Poland). rsolarska@chem.uw.edu.pl.
authors.forename: Renata
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Solarska
authors.forename: Krzysztof
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bienkowski
authors.forename: Sylwia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zoladek
authors.forename: Aldona
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Majcher
authors.forename: Tomasz
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Stefaniuk
authors.forename: Pawel J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Kulesza
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Augustynski
keywords: Keggin-type structures; plasmonic gold nanoparticles; polyoxometalates; solar energy conversion; tungsten trioxide