BINARY (Ni
x
Co
1-x
) TITANATES
NANORODS AS PHOTOCATALYSTS FOR
SOLAR WATER OXIDATION
M. Moschogiannaki
a,b *
, S. Murcia-Lopez
c
, V. Binas
a,b
, T. Andreu
c
, J. R. Morante
c,d
,
G. Kiriakidis
a,b
a
Physics Department, University of Crete GR-70013,Voutes, Heraklion,70013,Crete, Greece
b
Institute of Electronic Strusture and Laser, Foundation of Research and Technology 100,
N. Plastira street, Voutes, Heraklion, 70013, Crete, Greece
c
Catalonia Institute for Energy Research, IREC, Jardins de les Dones de Negre 1, 08930
Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, Spain
d
Departament d'Electrònica, Universitat de Barcelona, Martí i Franquès, 1, 08028
Barcelona,Spain
*Email:
,
CoTiO
3
and NiTiO
3
have been recently demonstrated to be promising candidates as visible-
light photoactive materials for water oxidation and pollutant degradation.
1,2
Solution based
synthesis by ethylene – glycol route at room temperature of a series of samples (ATiO
3
) with
different ration Ni/Co (as A) followed by calcination at 600
o
C in air, obtaining nanorods with
lengths ranging from 2.5 to 3.0 μm. Structural characterization demonstrates the formation of
a solid solution in the full range of compositions, which facilitates to tune the band gap into
the visible range and are active to photocatalytic water oxidation under visible light.
The binary systems have shown better performance in water oxidation than CoTiO
3
and
NiTiO
3.
In particular, Ni
0.4
Co
0.6
TiO
3
was found to demonstrate the highest catalytic activity
compared with them. The O
2
yield was up to 3.774 μmolh
-1
m
-2
without any co-catalyst.
Due to its superior oxygen activity, Ni
0.4
Co
0.6
TiO
3
was successfully employed as oxygen
evolution catalyst (OEC) to build heterojunction photoanodes with TiO
2
nanorods, WO
3
and
BiVO
4
for photoelectrochemical water splitting.
References:
1
Y.Qu, W.Zhou, H.Fu, ChemCatChem 2014, 6, 265-270
2
Y.Qu, W.Zhou, Z.Ren, S.Du, X.Meng, G.Tian, K.Pan, G.Wang, H.Fu, J.Mater.Chem.,2012,
22, 16471-16476
O 43
-105-
