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Updated: Jan 25, 2026

Solar-Driven Electrochemical Green Fuel Production from CO2 and Water Using Ti3C2Tx MXene-Supported CuZn and NiCo Catalysts
Published on: November 7, 2025
Black phosphorene as a hole extraction layer boosting solar water splitting of oxygen evolution catalysts
Kan Zhang1,2, Bingjun Jin3, Cheolwoo Park4
1MIIT Key Laboratory of Advanced Display Material and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China. zhangkan@njust.edu.cn.
Abstract:
As the development of oxygen evolution co-catalysts (OECs) is being actively undertaken, the tailored integration of those OECs with photoanodes is expected to be a plausible avenue for achieving highly efficient solar-assisted water splitting. Here, we demonstrate that a black phosphorene (BP) layer, inserted between the OEC and BiVO4 can improve the photoelectrochemical performance of pre-optimized OEC/BiVO4 (OEC: NiOOH, MnOx, and CoOOH) systems by 1.2∼1.6-fold, while the OEC overlayer, in turn, can suppress BP self-oxidation to achieve a high durability. A photocurrent density of 4.48 mA·cm-2 at 1.23 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) is achieved by the NiOOH/BP/BiVO4 photoanode. It is found that the intrinsic p-type BP can boost hole extraction from BiVO4 and prolong holes trapping lifetime on BiVO4 surface. This work sheds light on the design of BP-based devices for application in solar to fuel conversion, and also suggests a promising nexus between semiconductor and electrocatalyst.
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