Hydrogen generation from water splitting by photoelectrochemical cell (PEC) is a potential approaches for the generation of hydrogen which can fulfill the global energy requirement. In the process of developing economical and efficient photo-catalysts for water oxidation, n-type monoclinic BiVO4 has been widely explored due to its efficient solar to hydrogen (STH) absorption efficiency and band gap. But the photo conversion efficiency of BiVO4 catalyst is relatively low due to poor charge transport, fast surface charge recombination and sluggish water oxidation kinetics. In current report, BiVO4 photocatalyst composite with graphitic carbon nitride (C3N4) was prepared by dip coating technique to overcome poor charge transport. With the addition of C3N4 in BiVO4 photo current for water oxidation was increased ~22 times (0.95 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V RHE) with regard to pristine BiVO4 (0.046 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V RHE) under simulated one sunlight illumination in K2HPO4 electrolyte. The electrochemical measurements shows improvement in charge carrier density, charge mobility, electrochemical surface area and reduction in bulk and surface resistance with C3N4 addition in BiVO4. The phenomena of surface states formation was used to further confirm the observation. The detailed physical and chemical characterization of samples carried out. Further PEC performance was corroborated with changes in band gap, crystal lattice, surface grain morphology occurred due to C3N4 addition in BiVO4.

Electrochemical investigation of the effect of graphitic carbon nitride addition in BiVO4 to improve photoelectrochemical water oxidation performance

2019 Fall National Meeting

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