The investigation of Cu2O electrochemical deposition time effect on ZnO for water splitting

The renewable hydrogen production has been immense research area, converting solar light to hydrogen in PEC applications. Both ZnO and Cu2O are lower cost material for commercialization on PEC. Herein, Cu2O electrochemical deposition time effect was investigated on ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs) for water splitting with solar light irradiation (10, 20, 30 and 40 min). The deposition duration is attributed to the photocatalytic performance for hydrogen production. FESEM and UV-vis results suggest that the deposition duration plays a key role in surface structure and absorption of light, respectively. Both electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and linear sweep voltammetry indicate that ZnO/Cu2O-20 min electrode is the lowest R-p value (25486 Omega cm(-2) ) and the highest current-density (0.64 mA cm(-2) at 0.5 V vs. Ag/AgCl reference electrode), respectively. This paper gives understanding into long-time electrochemical deposition of Cu2O on ZnO NRAs for water splitting via solar light irradiation. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.