DESIGN NOVEL OXIDE PHOTOCATALYST NANOSTRUCTURES FOR PHOTOELECTROCHEMICAL WATER SPLLITTING
Yiping Zhao
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia , Athens , GA 30602
Hydrogen generation at low cost and in an environmentally-friendly manner is a major challenge for its potential use as a clean fuel. PEC, in conjunction with PVC, based on low cost metal oxide nanomaterials is a promising approach for hydrogen generation from water splitting. Some of the technical challenges or barriers include the design and understanding of novel nanomaterial architectures for hydrogen generation from water splitting at high efficiency but low cost. Strategies based on metal oxide nanostructures to produce inorganic nanocomposite materials for this purpose offer some intriguing alternatives to overcome some of these technical barriers by rationally engineering the electronic bandgap structure to enhance charge transfer and transport and thereby improved PVC and PEC performance
The primary objective of this project is hydrogen generation from water splitting using integrated photoelectrochemistry (PEC) and photovoltaic cells (PVC) based nanostructured materials. More specifically, various metal oxide nanostructures have been investigated to gain a better understanding of the many fundamental processes involved and photovoltaic (PV) as well as photoelectrochemical (PEC) properties towards water splitting.
Below are some of our papers on hydrogen prosuction and photocatalyst design
A. Wolcott, W. A. Smith, T. R. Kuykendall, Y.-P. Zhao, and J. Z. Zhang, “Photoelectrochemical study of nanostructured ZnO thin films for hydrogen generation from water splitting,” Advanced Functional Materials 19, 1-8 (2009).
W. Smith and Y.-P. Zhao, "Superior photocatalytic performance by vertically aligned core-shell TiO2/WO3 nanorod arrays," Catalysis Communications 10, 1117-1121 (2009).
A. Wolcott , W. A. Smith, T. R.. Kuykendall, Y.-P. Zhao, and J. Z. Zhang, "Photoelectrochemical water splitting using dense and aligned TiO2 nanorod arrays," Small 5, 104 -111 (2009).
W. Smith and Y.-P. Zhao, “Enhanced photocatalytic activity by aligned WO3/TiO2 two-layer nanorod array,” J. Phys. Chem. C 112, 19635 -19641 (2008).
Y.-P. He, Z.-Y. Zhang, and Y.-P. Zhao, “Optical and photocatalytic properties of oblique angle deposited TiO2 nanorod array,” J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 26, 1350 - 1358 (2008).
W. Smith, Z.-Y. Zhang, and Y.-P. Zhao, “Structural and optical characterization of WO3 nanorods/films prepared by oblique angle deposition,” J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 25, 1875-1881 (2007).
