Nanostructured α-Fe2O3 Thin Films for Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Generation

By A. Tahir, K. Wijayantha, S. Saremi-Yarahmadi, M. Mazhar, V. McKee. 2009

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α-Fe2O3 thin film photoelectrodes were fabricated by aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition (AACVD) using a new hexanuclear iron precursor [Fe6(PhCOO)10(acac)2(O)2(OH)2]·3C7H8 (1) (where PhCOO = benzoate and acac = 2,4-pentanedionate). The precursor (1) designed for AACVD has a low decomposition temperature and sufficient solubility in organic solvents and was synthesized by simple chemical techniques in high yield. It was characterized by melting point, FT-IR, X-ray crystallography, and thermogravimetry (TGA). The TGA analysis proved that complex (1) undergoes facile thermal decomposition at 475 °C to give iron oxide residue. In-house designed AACVD equipment was used to deposit highly crystalline thin films of α-Fe2O3 on fluorine-doped SnO2 coated glass substrates at 475 °C in a single step. The material properties were characterized by XRD, XPS, and Raman spectroscopy, and the results confirmed that films were highly crystalline α-Fe2O3 and free from other phases of iron oxide. Further analysis of ...

Subfields: Environmental Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/92a4d711c92c1eaed8cd43af4ec224d798e7e1ba