Determining the role of oxygen vacancies in the photoelectrocatalytic performance of WO₃ for water oxidation.

ABSTRACT: Oxygen vacancies are common to most metal oxides, whether intentionally incorporated or otherwise, and the study of these defects is of increasing interest for solar water splitting. In this work, we examine nanostructured WO₃ photoanodes of varying oxygen content to determine how the concentration of bulk oxygen-vacancy states affects the photocatalytic performance for water oxidation. Using transient optical spectroscopy, we follow the charge carrier recombination kinetics in these samples, from picoseconds to seconds, and examine how differing oxygen vacancy concentrations impact upon these kinetics. We find that samples with an intermediate concentration of vacancies (∼2% of oxygen atoms) afford the greatest photoinduced charge carrier densities, and the slowest recombinatio

SUBMITTER: Corby S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8157495 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature