Precursor Development and Aerosol-Assisted Chemical Vapour Deposition for BiVO and W-Doped BiVO Photoanodes: A Universal Ligand Approach.

Green hydrogen production is a key area of importance for advancing into a completely sustainable world, not only for its use in industry and ammonia production, but also for its potential as a new fuel. One promising method for generating green hydrogen is light-driven water splitting using photoelectrodes. Here, a bismuth vanadate (BiVO) photoanode deposition process was developed using new, bespoke dual-source precursors, tailored for use in aerosol-assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD). The resulting thin films were highly nanostructured and consisted of phase-pure monoclinic BiVO. Pristine films under 1 sun solar irradiation yielded photocurrent densities of 1.23 mA cm at 1.23 V vs RHE and a peak incident photon-electron conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 82 % at 674 nm, the highest performance of any CVD-grown BiVO film to date. A new, AACVD-compatible WO precursor was subsequently designed and synthesised for the deposition of W-doped BiVO within the same single deposition step.