Sunlight driven photoelectrochemical light-to-electricity conversion of screen-printed surface nanostructured TiO2 decorated with plasmonic Au nanoparticles

摘要: Abstract In this paper, we report a promising sunlight-driven screen-printed TiO 2 porous nanorods (PNR) photoanode decorated with Au plasmonic nanostructures for photoelectrochemical (PEC) light-to-electricity conversion. Fabricated photoanodes were characterized using field emission scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-Ray diffraction analysis, X-ray photoelectron N adsorption-desorption isotherms, UV–vis spectroscopy and electrochemical impedance in detail. The Au-PNR-TiO demonstrates superior PEC activities both under simulated sunlight visible light irradiation. Interestingly, the shows high photocurrent density of 0.71 mA cm −2 at +0.4 V vs. Ag/AgCl, which is 65% higher than pristine PNR-TiO . It shown that enhanced surface area, roughness factor, crystallinity one-dimensional framework are offered by make great microenvironment more accessible reactive sites, capturing ability, efficient charge generation smooth transfer photogenerated carriers. Decoration nanoparticles also play an important role improving performance injecting hot electrons excellent catalytic effect.