Metal (Ni2+/Co2+) sulfides modified BiVO4 for effective improvement in photoelectrochemical water splitting

Houde She; Man Jiang; Pengfei Yue; Jingwei Huang; Lei Wang; Jianzhang Li; Gangqiang Zhu; Qizhao Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.038

Metal (Ni²⁺/Co²⁺) sulfides modified BiVO₄ for effective improvement in photoelectrochemical water splitting

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Aug 1:549:80-88. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.038. Epub 2019 Apr 15.

Authors

Houde She¹, Man Jiang¹, Pengfei Yue¹, Jingwei Huang¹, Lei Wang¹, Jianzhang Li², Gangqiang Zhu³, Qizhao Wang⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Research Center of Gansu Military and Civilian Integration Advanced Structural Materials, Gansu International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Base of Water-Retention Chemical Functional Materials, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China.
² Key Laboratory of Green Catalysis of Sichuan Institutes of High Education Institutes of Sichuan, Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Zigong, 643000, China.
³ School of Physics and Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062, China. Electronic address: zgq2006@snnu.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Research Center of Gansu Military and Civilian Integration Advanced Structural Materials, Gansu International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Base of Water-Retention Chemical Functional Materials, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China; School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710064, China; Key Laboratory for Photonic and Electronic Bandgap Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Harbin Normal University, Harbin 150025, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: wangqizhao@163.com.

PMID: 31022526
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.038

Abstract

The performance of BiVO₄ for photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) water decomposition is commonly limited by reaction kinetics. In this work, NiS and CoS nanospheres were respectively loaded on BiVO₄ thin films (NiS/BiVO₄ and CoS/BiVO₄ composites) to improve its reaction kinetics for PEC water decomposition. Both physical and chemical properties of these composites were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, PL and UV-DRS. The photoelectric properties of the samples were verified by testing LSV, i-t, EIS and IPCE. The formation of the composites can effectively prevent the recombination of carriers and consequently accelerate the separation of electrons and holes. NiS/BiVO₄ and CoS/BiVO₄ can reach photocurrent of 2.1 mA cm^-2 and 2.7 mA cm^-2 under light respectively, at 1.23 V vs. RHE, which are 1.75 times and 2.25 times that of BiVO₄ (1.2 mA cm^-2). The hydrogen production of the NiS/BiVO₄ and CoS/BiVO₄ photoanodes was 4.7 and 7.3 times higher than that of BiVO₄ photoanode, respectively.

Keywords: CoS/BiVO(4); NiS/BiVO(4); Photoelectrochemical water splitting; Visible light.