A facile one-step strategy for in-situ fabrication of WO3-BiVO4 nanoarrays for solar-driven photoelectrochemical water splitting applications

Naseer Iqbal, Ibrahim Khan, Zain Hassan Abdallah Yamani, Ahsanulhaq Qurashi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

38 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper presents a facile single step strategy for fabrication of tungsten, bismuth and vanadium mixed metal oxide nanoarrays. WO3-BiVO4heteronanostructure was obtained hydrothermally with reaction time of two hrs at low temperature 110 °C. The morphology of as prepared WO3-BiVO4heterostructure revealed uniform and prominent nanorods like architectures under FE-SEM. These heteronanostructures were of variable sizes i.e., width ⩽100 nm and length 200–400 nm respectively. The energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and elemental mapping of heteronanostructure further confirmed W, Bi, V and O entities in good elemental composition. The purity and crystalline nature of as synthesized WO3-BiVO4were confirmed from X-ray crystallographic (XRD) analysis. UV–Visible spectroscopy and Raman analysis were also carried out to investigate optical properties of WO3-BiVO4. The band gap energy of WO3-BiVO4calculated from UV–Visible absorption and diffused reflectance spectroscopy's was observed to be 2.1 eV respectively. The photoelectrochemical (PEC) studies of FTO coated WO3-BiVO4showed a stable and repeatable photocurrent response under 1 SUN solar irradiation source. The linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) also corroborated substantial photocurrents at different oxidation and reduction potentials. Consequently, it is envisioned that this one-step strategy for in-situ fabrication of WO3-BiVO4heteronanostructures have potential applications in solar-driven photoelectrochemical water splitting reactions.

Original languageBritish English
Pages (from-to)604-611
Number of pages8
JournalSolar Energy
Volume144
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017

Keywords

  • Heteronanostructures
  • Hydrothermal
  • Nanorods
  • Solar water splitting
  • Tungsten oxide bismuth vanadate

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