Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Activity by Autologous Cd/CdO/CdS Heterojunction Photoanodes with High Conductivity and Separation Efficiency

Shilei Xie; Peng Zhang; Min Zhang; Peng Liu; Wei Li; Xihong Lu; Faliang Cheng; Yexiang Tong

doi:10.1002/chem.201701219

Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Activity by Autologous Cd/CdO/CdS Heterojunction Photoanodes with High Conductivity and Separation Efficiency

Chemistry. 2017 Jul 18;23(40):9625-9631. doi: 10.1002/chem.201701219. Epub 2017 Jun 29.

Authors

Shilei Xie^{1

2}, Peng Zhang^{1

2}, Min Zhang¹, Peng Liu¹, Wei Li², Xihong Lu², Faliang Cheng¹, Yexiang Tong²

Affiliations

¹ School of Environment and Civil Engineering, Guangdong Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Advanced, Nanomaterials, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, 523808, P.R. China.
² MOE of the Key Laboratory of Bioinorganic and Synthetic Chemistry, School of Chemistry, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, P.R. China.

PMID: 28510292
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201701219

Abstract

The development for hydrogen from solar energy has attracted great attention due to the global demand for clean, environmentally friendly energy. Herein, autologous Cd/CdO/CdS heterojunctions were prepared in a carefully controlled process with metallic Cd as the inner layer and CdO as the interlayer. Further research revealed that the transportation and separation of photogenerated pairs were enhanced due to low resistance of the Cd inner layer and the type II CdO/CdS heterojunction. As a result, the optimized Cd/CdO/CdS heterojunction photoanode showed outstanding and long-term photoelectrochemical activity for water splitting, with a current density of 3.52 mA cm^-2 , or a benchmark specific hydrogen production rate of 1.65 μmol cm^-2 min^-1 at -0.3 V versus Ag/AgCl, by using the environmental pollutants of sulfide and sulfite as sacrificial agents.

Keywords: cadmium; electrochemistry; photochemistry; semiconductors; sulfur.