Abstract

Herein, we report the synthesis of Cr incorporated ZnO sheets arrays microstructures and construction of photoelectrode through a direct aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD) method. The as-prepared Cr incorporated ZnO microstructures were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, powdered X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and UV-Vis diffused reflectance spectroscopy. The Cr incorporation in ZnO red shifted the optical band gap of as-prepared photoanodes. The 15% Cr incorporation in ZnO has shown enhanced PEC performance. The AACVD method provides an efficient in situ incorporation approach for the manipulation of morphological aspects, phase purity, and band structure of photoelectrodes for an enhanced PEC performance.

Details

Title
Electronic Tuning of Zinc Oxide by Direct Fabrication of Chromium (Cr) incorporated photoanodes for Visible-light driven Water Splitting Applications
Author
Khan, Humaira Rashid 1 ; Bilal, Akram 2 ; Muhammad, Aamir 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Malik, Muhammad Azad 4 ; Tahir Asif Ali 5 ; Choudhary, Muhammad Aziz 3 ; Akhtar Javeed 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

1  Mirpur University of Science and Technology (MUST), Materials Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Mirpur, Pakistan (GRID:grid.449138.3); The University of Manchester, School of Materials, Manchester, UK (GRID:grid.5379.8) (ISNI:0000000121662407); University of Exeter Penryn, Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), Cornwall, UK (GRID:grid.8391.3) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8024) 
2  Tsinghua University, Department of Chemistry, Beijing, China (GRID:grid.12527.33) (ISNI:0000 0001 0662 3178) 
3  Mirpur University of Science and Technology (MUST), Materials Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Mirpur, Pakistan (GRID:grid.449138.3) 
4  The University of Manchester, School of Materials, Manchester, UK (GRID:grid.5379.8) (ISNI:0000000121662407) 
5  University of Exeter Penryn, Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), Cornwall, UK (GRID:grid.8391.3) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8024) 
Publication year
2020
Publication date
2020
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66589-3
ProQuest document ID
2413788993
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.