Enhanced photoelectrochemical performance with in-situ Au modified TiO2 nanorod arrays as photoanode

摘要

In this paper, TiO2 nanorod arrays were prepared via seed-free and seed-assisted method and denoted as TA-SF and TA-SA respectively. TA-SF exhibited higher photoelectrochemical performance due to decreased resistance, prolonged electron lifetime obtained from electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS). A novel photo-reduction method was then employed to deposit and manipulate the loading amount of Au decoration. The Au/TA-SF photoanodes were then used in photoelectrochemical cells and the influences of the Au loading amount on the PEC performances were studied in detail. Due to the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of Au nanoparticle, charge transfer resistance was decreased and Au/TA-SF hybrid arrays exhibited improved photocurrent density compared with TA-SF arrays. Typically, Au/TA-SF exhibited higher photocurrent density of 1.1 mA/cm(2), which is much higher than that of Au/TASA. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.