Oxyanion induced variations in domain structure for amorphous cobalt oxide oxygen evolving catalysts, resolved by X-ray pair distribution function analysis.

ABSTRACT: Amorphous thin film oxygen evolving catalysts, OECs, of first-row transition metals show promise to serve as self-assembling photoanode materials in solar-driven, photoelectrochemical `artificial leaf' devices. This report demonstrates the ability to use high-energy X-ray scattering and atomic pair distribution function analysis, PDF, to resolve structure in amorphous metal oxide catalyst films. The analysis is applied here to resolve domain structure differences induced by oxyanion substitution during the electrochemical assembly of amorphous cobalt oxide catalyst films, Co-OEC. PDF patterns for Co-OEC films formed using phosphate, Pi, methylphosphate, MPi, and borate, Bi, electrolyte buffers show that the resulting domains vary in size following the sequence Pi < MPi < Bi. The increases

SUBMITTER: Kwon G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4669998 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature