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Article Open Access Feature Paper in A Commemorative Issue in Honor of Professor David Ollis: A Pioneer and Mentor

Exploring Bi4V2O11 as Photoanode for Water Splitting with a Wide Range of Solar Light Capture and Suitable Band Potential

Photocatalysis: Research and Potential. 2024, 1(2), 10002; https://doi.org/10.35534/prp.2024.10002
Xin Zhao 1,2    Ningsi Zhang 3    Yang Yu 4    Tao Fang 3    Jun Hu 5 *    Jianyong Feng 3 *    Zhong Chen 1 *   
1
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
2
College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
3
Eco-materials and Renewable Energy Research Center (ERERC), College of Engineering and Applied Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
4
Energy Foundation China, No. 19 Jianguomenwai Dajie, Beijing 100004, China
5
School of Chemical Engineering, Northwest University, Xi’an 710069, China
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 21 Feb 2024    Accepted: 08 Apr 2024    Published: 11 Apr 2024   

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Abstract

Bi4V2O11 possesses a bandgap of ~1.9 eV, and the band positions of minimum conduction band and maximum valence band straddle the redox potentials of H+/H2 and O2/H2O. In the current work, photoanode made of particulate Bi4V2O11 film displays a wide range of light adsorption. However, when the anode was fabricated by drop-casting and examined for photoelectrochemical water splitting, the photocurrent density of the pristine Bi4V2O11 was low. Improvement has then been carried out by Mo-doping. The Mo-doped Bi4V2O11 photoanode achieves a maximum photocurrent density of 0.3 mA/cm2 after a post deposition necking treatment to improve the connectivity of the drop-cast particles in the film. This material also shows a stability with maintaining 80% photocurrent after 2 h test. Discussion has been made on the displayed performance in PEC water splitting of the Bi4V2O11 materials. Potential solutions have been proposed for this type of promising photoanode material for water splitting.

Keywords

Visible light photocatalyst; Bi4V2O11; Photoelectrochemical water splitting; Photoanode

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© 2024 by the authors; licensee SCIEPublish, SCISCAN co. Ltd. This article is an open access article distributed under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).