Nanocrystalline Boron-Doped Diamond as a Corrosion-Resistant Anode for Water Oxidation via Si Photoelectrodes

Authors

P. Ashcheulov, A. Taylor, V. Mortet, A. Poruba, F. Le Formal, H. Krýsová, M. Klementová, P. Hubík, J. Kopeček, J. Lorinčík, Jun-Ho Yum, I. Kratochvílová, L. Kavan, K. Sivula

Laboratory / Department
Department of Functional Materials
Citation
ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 10 (2018) 29552 – 29564. Doi: 10.1021/ac…
DOI
10.1021/acsami.8b08714
Year
2018

Nanocrystalline boron-doped diamond (BDD) layers protect underlying photoelectrodes (Si) over a wide pH range (1–14) in aqueous electrolyte solutions. Si|BDD photoelectrodes show no sign of performance degradation after a continuous PEC treatment in neutral, acidic, and basic electrolytes. The deposition of a cobalt phosphate (CoPi) oxygen evolution catalyst onto the BDD layer significantly reduces the overpotential for water oxidation.

9-2018.jpg
Schematic illustration of a photoelectrode based on a boron doped diamond electrode and buried pn-junction Si solar cell for water oxidation and reduction. The PV component (np-Si) is responsible for incident light absorption and charge separation across the pn-junction, whereas oxygen evolution occurs at the boron doped diamond electrode/electrolyte surface and hydrogen evolves at the externally wired metal cathode.