Photocatalytic generation of hydrogen by core-shell WO3/BiVO4 nanorods with ultimate water splitting efficiency

Efficient photocatalytic water splitting requires effective generation, separation and transfer of photo-induced charge carriers that can hardly be achieved simultaneously in a single material. Here we show that the effectiveness of each process can be separately maximized in a nanostructured heterojunction with extremely thin absorber layer. We demonstrate this concept on WO3/BiVO4+CoPi core-shell nanostructured photoanode that achieves near theoretical water splitting efficiency. BiVO4 is characterized by a high recombination rate of photogenerated carriers that have much shorter diffusion length than the thickness required for sufficient light absorption. This issue can be resolved by the combination of…

• NI
  National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
• NI
  National Institute for Materials Science
• CR
  Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology