(548e) TiO2/BaTiO3 Bi-Layered Approach Towards Photoelectrochemical Generation of Hydrogen Via Direct Splitting of Water

TiO₂/BaTiO3 bi-layered approach towards photoelectrochemical generation of hydrogen via direct splitting of water

Shailja Sharma, Gurpreet Kaur, Anuradha Verma, Anamika Banerjee, Vibha R Satsangi¹, Sahab Dass, Rohit Shrivastav*

Department of Chemistry, Dayalbagh Educational Institute,

Dayalbagh, Agra-282 005, India

¹Department of Physics & Computer Science, Dayalbagh Educational Institute,

Dayalbagh, Agra-282 005, India

*Author for correspondence: rohitshrivastav_dei@yahoo.co.in

Abstract:

Nanostructured bi-layered thin films have potential application as photoelectrode in photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell for generation of hydrogen by splitting of water.  This study involves the fabrication of bi-layered junction which explored for best performance by tailoring thickness of the BaTiO₃ over TiO₂ thin films. Pristine BaTiO₃, TiO₂ and BaTiO₃/ TiO₂ were synthesized by sol- gel spin coating technique and were subjected to XRD (for phase and particle size analysis), UV-spectroscopy (for optical characterization), AFM (for surface topography) and SEM (for surface morphology). Wide absorption spectrum in visible region along with a sharp shoulder in UV region was observed. AFM and SEM picture of bi-layered thin films revealed uniform and well defined distribution of nanoparticles on the substrate i.e. growth of crystallites perpendicular to the substrate. XRD analysis confirmed the exhaustive evolution of tetragonal BaTiO₃ andanatase TiO₂ in all the samples, particle size varied between (40-50 nm). A maximum photocurrent density of ~0.98 mA/cm^‑2 at 0.9 V/SCE was recorded for 674 nm thick modified TiO₂/BaTiO₃ bi-layered photoelectrode, results are encouraging and show that bi-layered films yielded significant gain in photocurrent compared to mono-layered pristine samples.

Keywords: TiO₂/BaTiO₃ bi-layered thin films, Photoelectrochemical cell, solar hydrogen production, Water Splitting.