Construction of Highly Ordered Three-dimensional Heterostructured Electrodes for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting under Visible and Infrared Light

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The purpose of this project is to construct highly ordered three-dimensional (3D) heterostructures at nano-scale with the modification of noble metallic nanoparticles, Ln nanoparticles or narrow gap semiconductor nanoparticles that can further extend light absorption range. The structure-activity relationship between the nanoparticle-modified highly ordered 3D heterostructures and the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting performance is the main object to investigate how to improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency. The highly ordered 3D nanostructures shall be fabricated using template-based method, including anodic alumina oxide (AAO) nano-porous and polystyrene (PS) sphere templates. Then, the modification of functional nanoparticles will be mainly carried out by hydrothermal method in order to realize the 3D heterostructured photoelectrodes with the ability of responding to visible and infrared light. Through the optimization of the 3D heterostructured photoelectrodes in terms of nano-morphology, semiconductor matrixes, energy level structures, and composition, the PEC water splitting performance will be investigated in details to gain systematical understandings of the structure-activity relationship.