Generation
of Transparent Oxygen Evolution Electrode Consisting of Regularly
Ordered Nanoparticles from Self-Assembly Cobalt Phthalocyanine as
a Template
posted on 2016-11-04, 00:00authored byAhmed Ziani, Tatsuya Shinagawa, Liga Stegenburga, Kazuhiro Takanabe
The
decoration of (photo)electrodes for efficient photoresponse requires
the use of electrocatalysts with good dispersion and high transparency
for efficient light absorption by the photoelectrode. As a result
of the ease of thermal evaporation and particulate self-assembly growth,
the phthalocyanine molecular species can be uniformly deposited layer-by-layer
on the surface of substrates. This structure can be used as a template
to achieve a tunable amount of catalysts, high dispersion of the nanoparticles,
and transparency of the catalysts. In this study, we present a systematic
study of the structural and optical properties, surface morphologies,
and electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance of
cobalt oxide prepared from a phthalocyanine metal precursor. Cobalt
phthalocyanine (CoPc) films with different thicknesses were deposited
by thermal evaporation on different substrates. The films were annealed
at 400 °C in air to form a material with the cobalt oxide phase.
The final Co oxide catalysts exhibit high transparency after thermal
treatment. Their OER measurements demonstrate well expected mass activity
for OER. Thermally evaporated and treated transition metal oxide nanoparticles
are attractive for the functionalization of (photo)anodes for water
oxidation.