Engineering the structural, optical and photoelectrochemical properties of BaTiO₃-CoFe₂O₄ nanocomposite for photoelectrochemical water splitting

Water splitting in the presence of semiconductor photocatalyst under sunlight illumination is one of the potential methods to produce clean hydrogen fuel. Herein, a BaTiO₃-CoFe₂O₄ composite photocatalyst was fabricated using facile hydrothermal method and evaluated their structural, optical, morphological and electrochemical properties for their plausible application in photoelectrochemical water-splitting. The cubic phase of CoFe₂O₄ and tetragonal phase of BaTiO₃ were proved by X-ray diffraction pattern. The SEM and TEM images of the composite BaTiO₃-CoFe₂O₄ had shown the combination of both spherical and needle-like structure. The average diameter of pure BaTiO3 and CoFe2O4 was around 25 and 50 nm respectively, however, the particle size was reduced to 43 nm for BaTiO₃-CoFe₂O₄ composite. The UV-vis band gap analysis revealed that the Eg value of the composite was found in the visible spectrum. The photoelectochemical behavior with 12 mA/cm² at 1.7 V applied potential was achieved for the BaTiO₃-CoFe₂O₄ hybrid nanocomposite. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy showed that the prepared BaTiO₃-CoFe₂O₄ composite have possessed better charge transfer and recombination kinetics. 

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Published in: Electrochimica Acta
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2023.142849