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Evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned TiO(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting

Nowadays, increasing awareness of environment and fossil fuels protection stimulates intensive research on clean and renewable sources of energy. Production of hydrogen from water through solar-driven splitting reactions is one of the most promising approaches in the field of photoelectrochemistry (...

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Autores principales: Zare, Maryam, Solaymani, Shahram, Shafiekhani, Azizollah, Kulesza, Slawomir, Ţălu, Ştefan, Bramowicz, Miroslaw
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6052034/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30022150
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29247-3
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author Zare, Maryam
Solaymani, Shahram
Shafiekhani, Azizollah
Kulesza, Slawomir
Ţălu, Ştefan
Bramowicz, Miroslaw
author_facet Zare, Maryam
Solaymani, Shahram
Shafiekhani, Azizollah
Kulesza, Slawomir
Ţălu, Ştefan
Bramowicz, Miroslaw
author_sort Zare, Maryam
collection PubMed
description Nowadays, increasing awareness of environment and fossil fuels protection stimulates intensive research on clean and renewable sources of energy. Production of hydrogen from water through solar-driven splitting reactions is one of the most promising approaches in the field of photoelectrochemistry (PEC). In this work we have fabricated well-aligned, highly-ordered, smooth-mouth TiO(2) nanotube arrays (TNAs) in a two-step anodization process of titanium foil, which were then used as photoelectrodes for PEC water splitting. It demonstrates for the first time correspondence between non-linear component characteristics of multiscale rough surface and crystalline structure of annealed TNAs measured at various fabrication stages and their photoelectrochemical response. The as-anodized TNAs with isotropic surface (deduced from AFM and SEM images) and largest figure of merit (according to their PEC performance) were annealed at 450 °C in air. Scale-invariant descriptors of the surface structure of the deposits involved: fractal dimension, corner frequency, roughness, size of nanostructures and their dominant habits. Moreover, X-ray diffraction data processed using the Rietveld method confirmed co-existence of various oxides, for example: TiO(2) in the form of anatase, TiO and Ti(3)O(5) phases in the TNAs under study pointing that previous well-established mechanisms of the TNA growth were to certain degree incomplete.
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spelling pubmed-60520342018-07-23 Evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned TiO(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting Zare, Maryam Solaymani, Shahram Shafiekhani, Azizollah Kulesza, Slawomir Ţălu, Ştefan Bramowicz, Miroslaw Sci Rep Article Nowadays, increasing awareness of environment and fossil fuels protection stimulates intensive research on clean and renewable sources of energy. Production of hydrogen from water through solar-driven splitting reactions is one of the most promising approaches in the field of photoelectrochemistry (PEC). In this work we have fabricated well-aligned, highly-ordered, smooth-mouth TiO(2) nanotube arrays (TNAs) in a two-step anodization process of titanium foil, which were then used as photoelectrodes for PEC water splitting. It demonstrates for the first time correspondence between non-linear component characteristics of multiscale rough surface and crystalline structure of annealed TNAs measured at various fabrication stages and their photoelectrochemical response. The as-anodized TNAs with isotropic surface (deduced from AFM and SEM images) and largest figure of merit (according to their PEC performance) were annealed at 450 °C in air. Scale-invariant descriptors of the surface structure of the deposits involved: fractal dimension, corner frequency, roughness, size of nanostructures and their dominant habits. Moreover, X-ray diffraction data processed using the Rietveld method confirmed co-existence of various oxides, for example: TiO(2) in the form of anatase, TiO and Ti(3)O(5) phases in the TNAs under study pointing that previous well-established mechanisms of the TNA growth were to certain degree incomplete. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-07-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6052034/ /pubmed/30022150 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29247-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access 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 license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license 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 license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Zare, Maryam
Solaymani, Shahram
Shafiekhani, Azizollah
Kulesza, Slawomir
Ţălu, Ştefan
Bramowicz, Miroslaw
Evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned TiO(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting
title Evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned TiO(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting
title_full Evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned TiO(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting
title_fullStr Evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned TiO(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting
title_full_unstemmed Evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned TiO(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting
title_short Evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned TiO(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting
title_sort evolution of rough-surface geometry and crystalline structures of aligned tio(2) nanotubes for photoelectrochemical water splitting
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6052034/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30022150
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29247-3
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