Cold sprayed WO₃ and TiO₂ electrodes for photoelectrochemical water and methanol oxidation in renewable energy applications

authored by

C. Haisch, J. Schneider, M. Fleisch, H. Gutzmann, T. Klassen, D.W. Bahnemann

Abstract

Films prepared by cold spray have potential applications as photoanodes in electrochemical water splitting and waste water purification. In the present study cold sprayed photoelectrodes produced with WO

₃ (active under visible light illumination) and TiO

₂ (active under UV illumination) on titanium metal substrates were investigated as photoanodes for the oxidation of water and methanol, respectively. Methanol was chosen as organic model pollutant in acidic electrolytes. Main advantages of the cold sprayed photoelectrodes are the improved metal-semiconductor junctions and the superior mechanical stability. Additionally, the cold spray method can be utilized as a large-scale electrode fabrication technique for photoelectrochemical applications. Incident photon to current efficiencies reveal that cold sprayed TiO

₂/WO

₃ photoanodes exhibit the best photoelectrochemical properties with regard to the water and methanol oxidation reactions in comparison with the benchmark photocatalyst Aeroxide TiO

₂ P25 due to more efficient harvesting of the total solar light irradiation related to their smaller band gap energies.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Technical Chemistry

Type

Article

Journal

Dalton transactions

Volume

46

Pages

12811-12823

No. of pages

13

ISSN

1477-9226

Publication date

14.10.2017

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Inorganic Chemistry

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1039/c7dt02063e (Access: Open)