TiO2 - Based systems for photoelectrochemical generation of solar hydrogen

Abstract

In the present work our attention was focused on the obtaining photoelectrodes for photoelectrochemical cell that incorporate two electrodes, one of which has been titania (TiO2) coated on a transparent conducting oxide (TCO), referred to as the primary electrode and the other, the counter electrode, a non-corrosive metal such as a thin layer of platinum. A thin layer of a nanoporous TiO2 semiconductor was deposited onto a sheet of ITO conducting glass (sheet resistance ∼ 30 Ωcm -2). Several complementary investigation techniques like BET, SEM and XRD were used to follow the influence of the reactants molar ratio and thermal treatment on the TiO2 photoanode. The nanocrystalline TiO 2/ITO conducting glass electrode seems to be a promising photoanode in a photoelectrochemical cell for hydrogen generation by water splitting. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.