Photocorrosion protection of BiVO4 electrode by alpha-Cr2O3 core-shell for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production

The development of high-performance and robust photoelectrode with architecture design is a popular research area. In this study, BiVO4 photo corrosion protection carries out with alpha-Cr2O3 core-shell under solar light irradiation for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production. BiVO4 nanoparticles are coated with alpha-Cr2O3 core-shell by various hydrothermal deposition solutions at various pH values (4.0, 4.5, 5.0 and 5.5), indicating coverage processes of alpha-Cr2O3 on BiVO4 depend on the pH of deposition bath. A p-type alpha-Cr2O3 core-shell layer leads to the Vfb value of n-type BiVO4 shifting to a positive energy level, suggesting reducing BiVO4 ano-dic photocorrosion under solar light. BiVO4/Cr2O3 photo corrosion efficiency is investigated by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy, Cr2O3 core-shell layer photocorrosion protection efficiency (cef %) of BiVO4/Cr2O3 pH 4.0, BiVO4/Cr2O3 pH 4.5 and BiVO4/Cr2O3 pH 5.0 electrodes are calculated as 34.7 %, 54.3 % and 49.2 %, respectively. The photoelectrochemical hydrogen production performance demonstrates that BiVO4 photo response enhanced in terms of surface passivation layers cause to improve the charge-separation and excited electron pathway semiconductor-electrolyte boundary.