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Updated: Apr 11, 2026
Harvesting Solar Energy by Means of Charge-Separating Nanocrystals and Their Solids
Published on: August 23, 2012
Efficient Hole Extraction from a Hole-Storage-Layer-Stabilized Tantalum Nitride Photoanode for Solar Water Splitting
Guiji Liu1,2, Ping Fu1,2, Lingyu Zhou1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian 116023 (China).
Abstract:
One of the major hurdles that impedes the practical application of photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is the lack of stable photoanodes with low onset potentials. Here, we report that the Ni(OH)x/MoO3 bilayer, acting as a hole-storage layer (HSL), efficiently harvests and stores holes from Ta3N5, resulting in at least 24 h of sustained water oxidation at the otherwise unstable Ta3N5 electrode and inducing a large cathodic shift of ≈600 mV in the onset potential of the Ta3N5 electrode.
