UC San Diego

Solar and seawater are the ultimate energy resources on earth, and together constitute a potential solution to the energy crisis, which at the same time can reduce the carbon emission due to the use of fossil fuels. However, there are challenges in the generation of hydrogen fuel through water splitting using solar energy, such as the cost, and large scale manufacturing of the efficient and durable photoelectrodes. Primary challenge for solar water splitting using photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells is to develop photoelectrodes with sufficient photovoltage to electrolyze water, with maximized photon utilization efficiency, with long lifetime, and with cheap cost. This thesis then focuses on design, characterization and fabrication of novel nanostructured heterojunctions (with focus on nanowire/nanorod array heterostructures) for solar water splitting and hydrogen production. The primary focus of this thesis is to develop such photoelectrodes using low-cost, earth-abundant, non-toxic materials with cheap, facile, scalable fabrication techniques for efficient and durable solar water splitting in neutral solutions. The formation of the nanostructured array heterojunction offers unique combination of desired properties, such as enhanced light absorption, improved charge separation/collection, enlarged reaction surface area, and better electrochemical reaction dynamics. Two different types of nanostructured array heterojunctions present in this thesis including (i) Si/metal-oxides nanowire array heterojunction photoelectrodes (chapters 2-6), and (ii) all-metal-oxides nanowire/nanorod heterostructure photoelectrodes (chapters 7-8). Two different catalysts for hydrogen or oxygen evolution reaction are presented in chapters 9-10. The application of catalyst is to facilitate the gas evolution on the surface of nanostructured heterojunctions to improve the solar hydrogen production efficiency.