Aerosol assisted chemical vapor deposition of cobalt-based co-catalysts on bismuth vanadate-based photoelectrodes for solar water splitting systems
File(s)
Published version
Supporting information
Author(s)
Kafizas, Andreas
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Cobalt phosphate (CoPi) is a widely used oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst in photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting systems. Traditionally, CoPi is fabricated via photo-assisted electrodeposition (PED) from a cobalt-containing electrolyte solution, a method that is limited in scalability. In this study, we demonstrate a novel and scalable route to CoPi, where cobalt oxide (CoOx) is first grown by aerosol-assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD) and then surface modified through a dark electrochemical treatment (ET) process. Both fabrication techniques were used to deposit CoPi onto bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) photoanodes synthesised by AACVD. CoPi-decorated BiVO4 fabricated via AACVD + ET demonstrated superior charge separation efficiency, stability over four hours of chronoamperometry, and photoelectrochemical performance, achieving an improved half-cell solar-to-hydrogen (HC-STH) efficiency of 1.16% at 1.23 V vs RHE compared to CoPi-decorated BiVO4 fabricated by PED, which exhibited an HC-STH efficiency of 0.60%. These promising results highlight the potential of AACVD, conducted under atmospheric pressure, to enable the future development of both co-catalysts and scalable photoelectrode fabrication for large-area applications.
Date Issued
2026-03-25
Date Acceptance
2025-12-16
Citation
NPG Asia Materials, 2026, 18
ISSN
1884-4049
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
NPG Asia Materials
Volume
18
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
10.1038/s41427-026-00641-y
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 8
Date Publish Online
2026-03-18