Title: Effect of the annealing temperature on the photoconversion efficiency of heterostructured photoanode Bi₂S₃/ZnO nanorods in photoelectrochemical cells

Authors: Asla A. Al-Zahrani; Zulkarnain Zainal; Zainal Abidin Talib; Hong Ngee Lim; Araa Mebdir Holi; Noor Nazihah Bahrudin

Addresses: Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia; Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry, Imam Abdulrahman bin Fiasal University, Eastern Region, Dammam, 32256, Saudi Arabia ' Materials Synthesis and Characterization Laboratory, Institute of Advanced Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia; Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia ' Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia ' Materials Synthesis and Characterization Laboratory, Institute of Advanced Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia; Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia ' Department of Physics, College of Education, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Al-Diwaniyah, Al-Qadisiyah 58002, Iraq ' Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract: Bismuth (III) sulphide (Bi₂S₃) sensitised zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods have been synthesised using a successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) technique. The effect of annealing temperature on the performance of Bi₂S₃/ZnO NRAs/ITO as photoanode in photoelectrochemical cell has been investigated. The sensitisation of ZnO by Bi₂S₃ was conducted with five different series of annealing temperatures from 100°C to 500°C. The UV-Vis clearly showed a significant shift in the absorbance edge toward the visible light spectrum with the increasing annealing temperature. The changes in the structure and morphology of the thin film before and after annealing have been studied using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy(HR-TEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). A significant enhancement in the photoelectrochemical performance was noticed for Bi₂S₃/ZnO NRAs upon the post-heat treatment at 300°C which exhibited an admirable photoconversion efficiency of 3.17% which was ~13 times higher as compared with bare ZnO NRAs (0.25%). This improvement was ascribed to the enhanced surface area and improved visible light harvesting of the synthesised heterostructured photoanode.

Keywords: Bi₂S₃; ZnO nanorods; photoelectrochemical cell; SILAR method; photoconversion efficiency; annealing; photocurrent density; nanoparticles.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNT.2020.112384

International Journal of Nanotechnology, 2020 Vol.17 No.11/12, pp.807 - 824

Published online: 13 Jan 2021 *

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