Improving Stability and Photoelectrochemical Performance of BiVO4 Photoanodes in Basic Media by Adding a ZnFe2O4 Layer.

BiVO4 photoanodes have mainly been investigated under neutral conditions because BiVO4 gradually dissolves under extreme pH conditions. In this study, the possibility of utilizing ZnFe2O4 as a protection layer to stabilize BiVO4 in a 0.1 M KOH solution was investigated. A 10-15 nm thick ZnFe2O4 layer was conformally placed on a nanoporous BiVO4 electrode by photodepositing a FeOOH layer, followed by drop casting a zinc nitrate solution and annealing. The resulting BiVO4/ZnFe2O4 electrode generated a photocurrent density of >2 mA/cm(2) at 1.23 V versus RHE with a significantly improved stability compared with the pristine BiVO4 electrode. The incident and absorbed photon-to-current conversion efficiencies along with absorption spectra suggested that the ZnFe2O4 protection layer also contributes to photocurrent generation by increasing photon absorption and electron-hole separation. These results suggest that further investigation of protection and catalyst layers can enable more stable and efficient operation of BiVO4-based photoanodes in basic media.