High Surface Area Antimony-Doped Tin Oxide Electrodes Templated by Graft Copolymerization. Applications in Electrochemical and Photoelectrochemical Catalysis

Mesoporous ATO nanocrystalline electrodes of micrometer thickness have been prepared from ATO nanocrystals and the grafted copolymer templating agents poly vinyl chloride-g-poly(oxyethylene methacrylate). As obtained electrodes have high interfacial surface areas, large pore volumes, and rapid introxide electron transfer. The resulting high surface area materials are useful substrates for electrochemically catalyzed water oxidation. With thin added shells of TiO2 deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and surface bound Ru(H) polypyridyl chromophore, they become photoanodes for hydrogen generation in the presence of a reductive scavenger.