IMPROVEMENT THE BIVO4 PHOTOANODE FABRICATED FOR WATER OXIDATION BY ELECTRODEPOSITION TECHNIQUE

Abstract

Photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) technique for water oxidation technologies could become
important components in the renewable energy sector. BiVO4 has been receiving attention for applications in
PEC cell for O2 evolution with high photoelectrocatalytic activity and the advantage of visible radiation
absorption. The simple and high efficiency BiVO4 thin film fabrication for large scale is essential for scaling
up to the industrial application. This research describes the BiVO4 thin films fabrication on fluorine doped tin
oxide (FTO) by electrodeposition technique as simple, fast and suitable for scaling up of electrode
preparation. Cyclic voltammetry deposition was developed by studying the effect of potential range, scan rate,
number of scan, temperature, and pH of the solution to enhance the photoelectrocatalytic activity of water
oxidation under visible light irradiation. The fabricated FTO/BiVO4 thin films were characterized by
scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The
developed FTO/BiVO4 present the photocatalytic activities for water oxidation improvement more than 10
times when compared with the previous spin coating techniques. Therefore, this developing method shows
that the high efficiency, fast, simple and suitable for scaling up able to approach for water oxidation in the
industrial application.