title: Ultralight, Flexible, and Semi-Transparent Metal Oxide Papers for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting.
abstract: Thanks to their versatile functionality, metal oxides (MOs) constitute one of the key family materials in a variety of current demands for sensor, catalysis, energy storage and conversion, optical electronics, and piezoelectric mechanics. Much effort has focused on engineering specific nanostructure and macroscopic morphology of MOs that aims to enhance their performances, but the design and controlled synthesis of ultrafine nanostructured MOs in a cost-effective and facile way remains a challenge. In this work, we have exploited the advantages of intrinsic structures of graphene oxide (GO) papers, serving as a sacrificial template, to design and synthesize two-dimensional (2D) layered and free-standing MO papers with ultrafine nanostructures. Physicochemical characterizations showed that these MO materials are nanostructured, porous, flexible, and ultralight. The as-synthesized materials were tested for their potential application in photoelectrochemical (PEC) energy conversion. In terms of PEC water splitting, copper oxide papers were used as an example and exhibited excellent performances with an extremely high photocurrent-to-weight ratio of 3 A cm-2g-1. We have also shown that the synthesis method is generally valid for many earth-abundant transition metals including copper, nickel, iron, cobalt, and manganese.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark , DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Minwei
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5588-6169
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark , DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.|The State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University , Shanghai 201620, China.
authors.forename: Chengyi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark , DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Arnab
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Halder
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark , DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Qijin
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4523-2609
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chi
keywords: 2D nanomaterial; graphene oxide paper; hydrogen generation; photoelectrochemical water splitting; templated synthesis; ultralight metal oxide