Sensitization of Nanocrystalline Metal Oxides with a Phosphonate-Functionalized Perylene Diimide for Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation with a CoOx Catalyst

A planar organic thin film composed of a perylene diimide dye (N,N'-bis (phospho nom ethyl)-3,4,9,10-perylenediimide, PMPDI) with photoelectrochemically deposited cobalt oxide (CoOx) catalyst was previously shown to photoelectrochemically oxidize water (DOI: 10.1021/am405598w). Herein, the same PMPDI dye is studied for the sensitization of different nano structured metal oxide (nano-MOx) films in a dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cell architecture. Dye adsorption kinetics and saturation decreases in the order TiO2 > SnO2, >> WO3. Despite highest initial dye loading on TiO2 films, photocurrent with hydroquinone (H(2)Q) sacrificial reductant in pH 7 aqueous solution is, much higher on SnO2 films, likely due to a higher driving force for charge injection into the inorer-sitiVe conduction band energy of SnO2. Dyeing conditions and SnO2, film thickness were subsequently optiMized to achieve-lighttharvestirig efficiency >99% at the lambda(max) of the dye, and absorbed photon-to-current efficiency of 13% with H(2)Q, a 2-fold,nriprovement over the previous thin-film architecture. A CoOx, water-oxidation catalyst was photoelectrochemically deposited, allowing for photoelectrochemical water oxidation with a faradaic efficiency of 31 +/- 7%, thus demonstrating the second example of a water-oxidizing, dye-sensitized photoelectrolysis cell composed entirely of earth-abundant materials. However, depositions of CoOx always results lower photocurrent due to enhanced recombination between catalyst and photoinjected electrons in SnO2, as confitrritd by open-circuit photovoltage measurements. Possible future studies to enhance photoariode performance are discussed, including alternative catalyst deposition strategies or structural derivatization of the perylene dye.