A novel black TiO₂/ZnO nanocone arrays heterojunction on carbon cloth for highly efficient photoelectrochemical performance

Abstract

ZnO nanocone arrays (NCAs) decorated with black TiO₂ nanoparticles (B-TiO₂ NPs) were uniformly anchored on the surface of carbon cloth (CC) directly by a simply electrochemical deposition method. Thus a novel B-TiO₂ NPs/ZnO NCAs–CC hierarchical heterostructure was formed. It displayed superior performance and achieved a higher photocurrent over 0.4 mA·cm⁻² before the onset of the dark current, attributed to the separation of the photogenerated electron–hole pair. Based on the B-TiO₂ NPs/ZnO NCAs–CC heterostructure, the catalyst was fabricated for promoting the separation of charge carriers. Moreover, the introduction of Ti³⁺ and oxygen vacancies on the surface of TiO₂ NPs expanded the absorption band edge and enhanced the electrical conductivity as well as the charge transportation on the catalytic surface. It indicates that the B-TiO₂ NPs/ZnO NCAs–CC composite is beneficial to the improvement of the photoelectrochemical (PEC) activity.

Keywords

black TiO₂ nanoparticles / ZnO nanocones arrays / carbon cloth

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51662036 and 61704114), the Open Foundation of Engineering Research Center of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering of Xinjiang Bintuan (2016BTRC005), and the Graduate Student Scientific Research Innovation Projects in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China (XJGRI2017046).

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