Photocatalytic water splitting represents an emerging technology well positioned to satisfy the growing need for low-energy, low CO2, economically viable hydrogen gas production. As such, stable, high-surface-area electrodes are increasingly being investigated as electrodes for the photochemical conversion of solar energy into hydrogen fuel. We present a titanium dioxide (TiO2)/zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire array using a hybrid hydrothermal/atomic layer deposition (ALD) for use as a solar-powered photoelectrochemical device. The nanowire array consists of single crystalline, wurtzite ZnO nanowires with a 40 nm ALD TiO2 coating. By using a TiO2 nanocoating on the high surface area-ZnO array, three advancements have been accomplished in this work: (1) high aspect ratio nanowires with TiO2 for water splitting (over 8 μm), (2) improved stability over bare ZnO nanowires during photocatalysis, and (3) excellent onset voltage. As such, this process opens up new class of the micro/nanofabrication process for making efficient photocatalytic gas harvesting systems.

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TiO2 纳米涂层在 ZnO 纳米线上的原子层沉积以提高光催化稳定性

光催化水分解代表了一种新兴技术，可以很好地满足对低能耗、低二氧化碳、经济可行的氢气生产日益增长的需求。因此，越来越多地研究稳定、高表面积的电极作为将太阳能光化学转化为氢燃料的电极。我们使用混合水热/原子层沉积 (ALD) 提出了一种二氧化钛 (TiO2)/氧化锌 (ZnO) 纳米线阵列，用作太阳能光电化学装置。纳米线阵列由单晶纤锌矿 ZnO 纳米线和 40 nm ALD TiO2 涂层组成。通过在高表面积-ZnO 阵列上使用 TiO2 纳米涂层，这项工作取得了三个进步：（1）具有用于水分解的 TiO2 的高纵横比纳米线（超过 8 μm），(2) 在光催化过程中提高了裸 ZnO 纳米线的稳定性，以及 (3) 优异的起始电压。因此，该工艺为制造高效的光催化气体收集系统开辟了一类新的微/纳米制造工艺。