α-hematite-molybdenum disulfide and polyhexylthiophene (RRPHTh)-nanodiamond (ND) electrodes for photoelectrochemical applications

3^rd International Conference on Smart Materials & Structures

March 20-22, 2017 Orlando, USA

Hussein Alrobei and Manoj K Ram

University of South Florida, USA

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Material Sci Eng

Abstract :

The alpha (�?±)-hematite (Fe2O3) nanomaterial is attractive due to its band gap, chemical robustness, availability in the nature and excellent photoelectrochemical (PEC) properties to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. However, the �?±-Fe2O3 suffers from low conductivity, slow surface kinetic, low carrier diffusion and greater electron-hole combination. The electronic properties such as carrier mobility and diffusion of �?±-Fe2O3 can be improved through doping, synthesis of composite material or formation of structured films. Recently, 2D-molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has shown interesting photocatalytic activity due to its bonding, chemical composition, doping and nanoparticles grown on other 2D-film. Recently, our group has studied photoelectrochemical properties of hybrid film of regioregular poly (3-hexylthiophene-2, 5-diyl) (P3HT) with nanodiamond as well as P3HT-MoS2. In the present study, we have studied photoelectrochemical properties of polyhexylthiophene (RRPHTh)-nanodiamond (ND) and �?±-Fe2O3-MoS2 nanocomposite based electrodes films. The photoelectrochemical properties of �?±-Fe2O3-MoS2 as n-type and ND-RRPHTh as p-type electrodes in photoelectrochemical cell in various electrodes have been studied. We have obtained 3 to 4 times higher photocurrent and energy conversion efficiencies than the parent electrode based photoelectrochemical cell. We have synthesized nanocomposite �?±-Fe2O3- MoS2 using sol-gel technique. The nanocomposite �?±-Fe2O3-MoS2 as well as ND-RRPHTh films were characterized using SEM, X-ray diffraction, UV-vis, FTIR and Raman techniques. The electrochemical techniques were used to understand the photocurrent in electrode/electrolyte interface of �?±-Fe2O3-MoS2 as well as ND-RRPHTh films in both acid base based electrolyte. The �?±-Fe2O3-MoS2 and ND-RRPHTh electrodes reveal improved production of hydrogen compared to �?±-Fe2O3 and aluminum doped �?±-Fe2O3 and MoS2 doped �?±-Fe2O3 nanostructured films. The band structure has been used to understand the mechanism of photoelectrochemical water splitting in p-n types based photoelectrochemical cell.

Biography :

Hussein Saad Alrobei is a PhD candidate at Mechanical Engineering Department,University of South Florida, USA and lecturer at Mechanical Engineering Department, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia.

Email: alrobei@mail.usf.edu