Abstract
Converting solar energy into sustainable hydrogen fuel by photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising technology to solve increasingly serious global energy supply and environmental issues. However, the PEC performance based on TiO(2) nanomaterials is hindered by the limited sunlight-harvesting ability and its high recombination rate of photogenerated charge carriers. In this work, layered SnS(2) absorbers and CoO(x) nanoparticles decorated two-dimensional (2D) TiO(2) nanosheet array photoelectrode have been rationally designed and successfully synthesized, which remarkably enhanced the PEC performance for water splitting. As the result, photoconversion efficiency of TiO(2)/SnS(2)/CoO(x) and TiO(2)/SnS(2) hybrid photoanodes increases by 3.6 and 2.0 times under simulated sunlight illumination, compared with the bare TiO(2) nanosheet arrays photoanode. Furthermore, the TiO(2)/SnS(2)/CoO(x) photoanode also presented higher PEC stability owing to CoO(x) catalyst served as efficient water oxidation catalyst as well as an effective protectant for preventing absorber photocorrosion.