Large-Area Synthesis of a Ni₂P Honeycomb Electrode for Highly Efficient Water Splitting

Transition metal phosphides have recently been regarded as robust, inexpensive electrocatalysts for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Thus far, tremendous scientific efforts have been applied to improve the catalytic activity of the catalyst, whereas the scale-up fabrication of morphology-controlled catalysts while maintaining their desired performance remains a great challenge. Herein, we present a facile and scalable approach to fabricate the macroporous Ni₂P/nickel foam electrode. The obtained electrocatalyst exhibits superior bifunctional catalytic activity and durability, as evidenced by a low overpotential of 205 and 300 mV required to achieve a high current density of 100 mA cm^–2 for HER and OER, respectively. Such a spray-based strategy is believed to widely adapt for the preparation of electrodes with uniform macroporous structures over a large area (e.g., 100 cm²), which provides a universal strategy for the mass fabrication of high performance water-splitting electrodes

Trilayered Photoanode of TiO₂ Nanoparticles on a 1D–3D Nanostructured TiO₂‑Grown Flexible Ti Substrate for High-Efficiency (9.1%) Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Unprecedentedly High Photocurrent Density

An engineered and optimized trilayered TiO₂ photoelectrode on Ti metal substrates with synergistic effects for dye-sensitized solar cells has been developed through the combination of one-dimensional (1D) TiO₂ nanotubes, three-dimensional (3D) TiO₂ hierarchical microsized spheres, as well as zero-dimensional (0D) nanoparticles with a large surface area. The advantages of efficient charge-collection, light-harvesting, as well as high dye-loading capability make it possible to achieve unprecedentedly high short-circuit photocurrent density (17.90 mA cm^–2) under back-side illumination and thus allow us to obtain a power conversion efficiency as high as 9.10%

Multistack Integration of Three-Dimensional Hyperbranched Anatase Titania Architectures for High-Efficiency Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

An unprecedented attempt was conducted on suitably functionalized integration of three-dimensional hyperbranched titania architectures for efficient multistack photoanode, constructed via layer-by-layer assembly of hyperbranched hierarchical tree-like titania nanowires (underlayer), branched hierarchical rambutan-like titania hollow submicrometer-sized spheres (intermediate layer), and hyperbranched hierarchical urchin-like titania micrometer-sized spheres (top layer). Owing to favorable charge-collection, superior light harvesting efficiency and extended electron lifetime, the multilayered TiO₂-based devices showed greater <i>J</i>_sc and <i>V</i>_oc than those of a conventional TiO₂ nanoparticle (TNP), and an overall power conversion efficiency of 11.01% (<i>J</i>_sc = 18.53 mA cm^–2; <i>V</i>_oc = 827 mV and FF = 0.72) was attained, which remarkably outperformed that of a TNP-based reference cell (η = 7.62%) with a similar film thickness. Meanwhile, the facile and operable film-fabricating technique (hydrothermal and drop-casting) provides a promising scheme and great simplicity for high performance/cost ratio photovoltaic device processability in a sustainable way