An ultra-thin NiOOH layer loading on BiVO4 photoanode for highly efficient photoelectrochemical water oxidation

Monoclinic bismuth vanadate has been widely used as a promising n-type semiconductor for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water decomposition due to its high reserves, good stability in neutral solutions, and relatively narrow band gap. Here, we developed a simple method to prepare a thin NiOOH layer on the surface of BiVO4 nanorod arrays. The heterostructured photoanode shows great enhancement for the photocurrent density of 2.7 mA cm−2 at 1.23 V vs. RHE, which is ~2.3 times higher than that of pristine BiVO4 electrode, due to NiOOH as an efficient oxygen-releasing catalyst with abundant oxygen vacancies. The NiOOH/BiVO4 photoanodes are systematically studied with X-ray diffraction, Raman, X-ray photoelectron spectra, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and UV–vis diffuse-reflectance spectrum. The heterostructured photoanode shows excellent PEC activity, which can provide a promising and easy strategy to prepare such photoanode with high-efficient oxygen evolution co-catalysts.