Highly active deficient ternary sulfide photoanode for photoelectrochemical water splitting.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32555382.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-16800-w and PMC identifier 7299993.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The exploration of photoanode materials with high efficiency and stability is the eternal pursuit for the realization of practically solar-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Here we develop a deficient ternary metal sulfide (CdIn<sub>2</sub>S<sub>4</sub>) photoanode, and its PEC performance is significantly enhanced by introducing surface sulfur vacancies, achieving a photocurrent density of 5.73 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> at 1.23 V vs. RHE and 1 Sun with an applied bias photon-to-current efficiency of 2.49% at 0.477 V vs. RHE. The experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations highlight the enhanced effect of surface sulfur vacancies on the interfacial charge separation and transfer kinetics, which also demonstrate the restrained surface states distribution and the transformation of active sites after introducing surface sulfur vacancies. This work may inspire more excellent work on developing sulfide-based photoanodes.