New insights into water photooxidation on reductively pretreated hematite photoanodes.

It has been recently demonstrated that the photoactivity toward oxygen evolution of a number of n-type metal oxides can be substantially improved by a reductive electrochemical pretreatment. Such an enhancement has been primarily linked to the formation of low valent metal species that increase electrode conductivity. In this work, we report new insights into the electrochemical doping using highly ordered (110)-oriented hematite nanorods directly grown on FTO. The reductive pretreatment consists in applying negative potentials for a controlled period of time. Such a pretreatment was optimized in both potentiostatic and potentiodynamic regimes. We show that the optimized pretreatment enhances electrode conductivity due to an increase in charge carrier density. However, it additionally triggers changes in the morphologic, catalytic and electronic properties that facilitate the separation and collection of the photogenerated charge carriers causing an up to 8-fold enhancement in the photocurrent for water oxidation. The reductive pretreatment can be considered as a highly controllable electrochemical n-type doping with the amount of generated Fe2+/polaron species and the change in film morphology as the main factors determining the final efficiency for water photooxidation of the resulting electrodes.

Potentiostatic reversible photoelectrochromism: an effect appearing in nanoporous TiO2/Ni(OH)2 thin films.

In the field of energy saving, finding composite materials with the ability of coloring upon both illumination and change of the applied electrode potential keeps on being an important goal. In this context, chemical bath deposition of Ni(OH)2 into nanoporous TiO2 thin films supported on conducting glass leads to electrodes showing both conventional electrochromic behavior (from colorless to dark brown and vice versa) together with photochromism at constant applied potential. The latter phenomenon, reported here for the first time, is characterized by fast and reversible coloration upon UV illumination. The bleaching kinetics shows first order behavior with respect to the Ni(III) centers in the film, and an order 1.2 with respect to electrons in the TiO2 film. From a more applied point of view, this study opens up the possibility of having two-mode smart windows showing not only conventional electrochromism but also reversible darkening upon illumination.

Modification of Hematite Electronic Properties with Trimethyl Aluminum to Enhance the Efficiency of Photoelectrodes.

The electronic properties of hematite were investigated by means of synchrotron radiation photoemission (SR-PES) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). Hematite samples were exposed to trimethyl aluminum (TMA) pulses, a widely used Al-precursor for the atomic layer deposition (ALD) of Al2O3. SR-PES and XAS showed that the electronic properties of hematite were modified by the interaction with TMA. In particular, the hybridization of O 2p states with Fe 3d and Fe 4s4p changed upon TMA pulses due to electron inclusion as polarons. The change of hybridization correlates with an enhancement of the photocurrent density due to water oxidation for the hematite electrodes. Such an enhancement has been associated with an improvement in charge carrier transport. Our findings open new perspectives for the understanding and utilization of electrode modifications by very thin ALD films and show that the interactions between metal precursors and substrates seem to be important factors in defining their electronic and photoelectrocatalytic properties.