Enhancement of hydrogen production over screen-printed TiO2/BiVO4 thin film in the photoelectrochemical cells

In this letter, a novel visible light-driven TiO2/BiVO4 heterostructure thin film has been successfully fabricated via an advanced screen printing method. The photocatalytic hydrogen production was investigated by varying amount of TiO2 loading (0, 0.1, 0.8 and 1.2 wt) on the surface of BiVO4 from water splitting in a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell and dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) system. The crystallographic, morphological and chemical composition properties of the prepared TiO2/BiVO4 thin film was investigated by using different characterization techniques. The 0.8 wt TiO2/BiVO4 was identified as the most efficient photocatalyst by producing maximum accumulative hydrogen of 692 μmol within 120 min. The maximum hydrogen production obtained is attributed to a compact particle network between BiVO4 and TiO2 particles which provide an intimate contact with the electron collecting FTO substrate. © 2017