Solvent-engineering assisted synthesis and characterization of BiVO4 photoanode for boosting the efficiency of photoelectrochemical water splitting

A simple direct, scalable and reproducible approach for preparing photoelectrochemically active BiVO4 films on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates by hydrothermal method using a mixing solvent of ethylene glycol/ water was presented for the first time. As-prepared BiVO4 thin films were found to have pure monoclinic scheelite structure with a compact, irregular microstructured morphology and strong absorption in the visible light region with estimated bandgap of 2.4 eV. When applied as an electrode material for water splitting in borate electrolyte solution, a significantly enhanced stability, coupled with a 15-fold increase in photocurrent density (ca. 1.04 mA cm(-2)) are observed compared to those of conventional hydrothermal synthesized films. The BiVO4 prepared with mixed solvent gave a substantial enhancement of the incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) and absorbed photon to current efficiency (APCE) during light driven oxygen evolution