Journal
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A
Volume 2, Issue 4, Pages 1060-1067Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c3ta13399k
Keywords
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Funding
- National Basic Research Program (973 program) [2013CB932902]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [21310102005, 21201034, 21173042, 51103023]
- Educational Commission of Jiangsu Province [JHB2011-2]
- Science and Technology Support Program (Industry) Project of Jiangsu Province [BE 2013118]
- Southeast University [3207042401]
- MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) through MITEI-Weatherford International Corporation [6925033]
- MITEI [6925587]
- Center for Excitonics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an Energy Frontier Research Center
- U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, and Office of Basic Energy Sciences [DE-SC0001088]
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For TiO2-based photoanodes, the interfacial coupling between TiO2 and conductive materials (e.g., carbon) plays a vital role in determining the electron transfer efficiency and thus photoelectrical performance. In this paper, we describe a facile approach to effectively engineering the interfacial coupling between reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and TiO2 in well-designed one-dimensional (1D) RGO-wrapped TiO2 nanofibers, which act as ultrafast electron transfer bridges when implanted in photoanodes. The 3-5 nm RGO nanoshells were hybridized with TiO2 nanofibers as an electron donor component via d-pi electron orbital overlap between C and Ti atoms, by adopting a thermal reduction at 450 degrees C. Remarkable photoelectric improvement, in terms of high photocurrent density by 2.2-fold and ultralow charge transfer resistance (R-ct) by 0.2-fold, is ascribed to the interfacial charge transfer. Completely reduced RGO in RGO/TiO2 nanofibers was not necessary at the expense of their hydrophilicity, as it led to unexpected isolation in the photoanodes. The thermal reduction temperature of RGO/TiO2 nanofibers was found to be critical, and a maximal photocurrent density could be achieved by 2.7-fold at 530 degrees C. An excess of RGO/TiO2 nanofibers of more than 5 wt% had a degrading effect on the photoelectrical activity, largely due to the light-block effect and isolation in the matrix. This strategy provides new insight for tuning the intrinsic chemical and/or physical properties of well-designed semiconductor nanostructures with promising photoactivities in highly efficient photovoltaic devices.
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