Biomimetic mineralisation of conformal TiO 2 protection layers on nanostructured photoelectrodes for sustainable fuel production Ping-Chang Chuang and Yi-Hsuan Lai National Cheng Kung University, Chinese Taipei Photoelectrochemical synthesis provides an elegant way to produce sustainable fuels by combining light absorbers and electrolysers in a single device. However, most photoelectrodes with a narrow bandgap suffer from photocorrosion or chemical dissolution. The conformal coating of chemically stable materials, such as TiO 2 , by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a universal strategy to enhance the stability of desired photoelectrodes. Nevertheless, ALD's arduous and expensive process limits its further application in scale-up. To address this problem, we reported an environmental-friendly and scalable route to deposit the conformal TiO 2 inspired by mineralisation. The protamine-mediated process can successfully synthesise conformal TiO 2 on nanostructured WO 3 (nanoWO 3 |TiO 2 ) and microstructured Cu 2 O (microCu 2 O|TiO 2 ) by facile soaking in the protamine and titanium precursor solution sequentially. Photoelectrochemical stability studies also show the current density of nanoWO 3 |TiO 2 modified with oxygen evolution catalyst remains nearly 100% of its original current density at 1.0 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (vs RHE) in a neutral solution for 1 hour. At the counter part, the current density of microCu 2 O|TiO 2 modified with hydrogen evolution catalyst remains nearly two times higher than that of no TiO 2 modified one. This scalable and simple deposition process can be readily applied to other promising materials. References 1. Y. -H. Lai, Y.-J. Lai, C.-Y. Yen, and P. -C. Chuang, Sustain. Energy Fuels 4 (2020) 5005-5008. 2. Developing an electrochemical assay for the directed evolution of enzymes for electrosynthesis Gerulskis, Rokas 3. University of Utah, USA
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