A quantitative assessment of the competition between water and anion oxidation at WO3 photoanodes in acidic aqueous electrolytes
- 3 January 2012
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in Energy & Environmental Science
- Vol. 5 (2), 5694-5700
- https://doi.org/10.1039/c2ee02929d
Abstract
The faradaic efficiency for O2(g) evolution at thin-film WO3 photoanodes has been evaluated in a series of acidic aqueous electrolytes. In 1.0 M H2SO4, persulfate was the predominant photoelectrochemical oxidation product, and no O2 was detected unless catalytic quantities of Ag+(aq) were added to the electrolyte. In contact with 1.0 M HClO4, dissolved O2 was observed with nearly unity faradaic efficiency, but addition of a hole scavenger, 4-cyanopyridine N-oxide, completely suppressed O2 formation. In 1.0 M HCl, Cl2(g) was the primary oxidation product. These results indicate that at WO3 photoanodes, water oxidation is dominated by oxidation of the acid anions in 1.0 M HCl, H2SO4, and HClO4, respectively.Keywords
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