Sunlight is an ideal source of energy, and converting sunlight into chemical fuels, mimicking what nature does, has attracted significant attention in the past decade. In terms of solar energy conversion into chemical fuels, solar water splitting for hydrogen production is one of the most attractive renewable energy technologies, and this achievement would satisfy our increasing demand for carbon-neutral sustainable energy. Here, we report corrosion-resistant, nanocomposite photoelectrodes for spontaneous overall solar water splitting, consisting of a CdS quantum dots (QDs) modified TiO<sub>2</sub> photoanode and a CdSe QDs modified NiO photocathode, where cadmium chalcogenide QDs are protected by ZnS passivation layer and gas evolution co-catalysts. The optimized device exhibited a maximum efficiency of 0.17% comparable to that of the natural photosynthesis with excellent photostability under visible light illumination. Our device is the first achievement of a complete QD-based system, showing spontaneous overall water splitting in a non-sacrificial environment under visible light illumination (λ &gt; 400 nm) through mimicking the nature’s “Z-scheme” process. The results here also provide a conceptual layout to improve the efficiency of solar-to-fuel conversion, which is solely based on facile scalable solution-phase techniques.

1D core-shell semiconductor nanowire arrays for photoelectrochemical water splitting

249th National Meeting (2015)

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