Porous WO3 monolith-based photoanodes for high-efficient photoelectrochemical water splitting

We report a successful fabrication of low-cost, high-efficient, structurally-rigid, porous WO3 photoelectrochemical (PEC) catalysts using polystyrene as the template by a sol-gel method and a high-temperature annealing treatment. The scanning electron microscopy and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface analysis results indicate that such WO3 monoliths possess a porous structure and a large specific surface area, which can supply lots of photogenerated charge transfer pathways as well as more surface PEC active sites. Compared with a commercially available WO3, our highly porous WO3 PEC catalysts show an excellent PEC water splitting activity. Particularly, the porous WO3 photoanodes calcinated in the presence of oxygen atmosphere at 450 degrees C for 7 h show the best PEC performance exhibiting the photocurrent density of 0.97 mA/cm(2) at 1.23 V versus reversible the hydrogen electrode and the incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency up to 48.9% at 420 nm in 0.5 M Na2SO4 electrolyte under AM 1.5 G irradiation. Such excellent PEC performance is due to the high porosity of the WO3, promoting the fast transfer and the separation rate of photogenerated carriers during the PEC water splitting process.