Herein, a detailed investigation of the surface modification of a zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorod electrode with FeOOH nanoparticles dispersed in glycine was conducted to improve the water oxidation reaction assisted by sunlight. The results were systematically analysed in terms of the general parameters (light absorption, charge separation, and surface for catalysis) that govern the photocurrent density response of metal oxide as photoanode in a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell. ZnO electrodes surface were modified with different concentration of FeOOH nanoparticles using the spin‐coating deposition method, and it was found that 6‐layer deposition of glycine‐FeOOH nanoparticles is the optimum condition. The glycine plays an important role decreasing the agglomeration of FeOOH nanoparticles over the ZnO electrode surface and increasing the overall performance. Comparing bare ZnO electrodes with the ones modified with glycine‐FeOOH nanoparticles an enhanced photocurrent density can be observed from 0.27 to 0.57 mA/cm² at 1.23 V_RHE under sunlight irradiation. The impedance spectroscopy data aid us to conclude that the higher photocurrent density is an effect associated with more efficient surface for chemical reaction instead of electronic improvement. Nevertheless, the charge separation efficiency remains low for this system. The present discovery shows that the combination of glycine‐FeOOH nanoparticle is suitable and environmentally‐friend cocatalyst to enhance the ZnO nanorod electrode activity for the oxygen evolution reaction assisted by sunlight irradiation.

中文翻译：

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通过添加用于诱导阳光水氧化的富含地球的助催化剂来定制氧化锌纳米棒表面。

在本文中，对FeOOH纳米颗粒分散在甘氨酸中的氧化锌（ZnO）纳米棒电极的表面改性进行了详细研究，以改善阳光辅助下的水氧化反应。根据一般参数（光吸收，电荷分离和催化表面）来系统分析结果，这些参数控制着光电化学（PEC）电池中作为光阳极的金属氧化物的光电流密度响应。使用旋涂沉积方法用不同浓度的FeOOH纳米粒子对ZnO电极表面进行了修饰，发现甘氨酸-FeOOH纳米粒子的6层沉积是最佳条件。甘氨酸在减少FeOOH纳米颗粒在ZnO电极表面上的团聚和提高整体性能方面起着重要的作用。将裸露的ZnO电极与甘氨酸-FeOOH纳米粒子修饰的电极进行比较，可以观察到0.27至0.57 mA / cm的增强的光电流密度²在1.23 V _RHE下，在阳光照射下。阻抗谱数据有助于我们得出结论，较高的光电流密度是与化学反应而不是电子改进的更有效表面相关的效应。然而，该系统的电荷分离效率仍然很低。目前的发现表明，甘氨酸-FeOOH纳米粒子的组合是合适的和环境友好的助催化剂，可增强ZnO纳米棒电极活性，以促进阳光照射下的氧释放反应。