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Volume 6, Issue 4 (Suppl) J Material Sci Eng, an open access journal
ISSN: 2169-0022 Materials Congress 2017
June 12-14, 2017
June 12-14, 2017 Rome, Italy
Materials Science and Engineering
9th World Congress on
A highly efficient photoanode for enhancing degradation of the azo dye and electricity generation of dual-
photoelectrode photocatalytic fuel cell
He Yun
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Discharging organic matters into water bodies directly not only causes serious environment pollution but also wastes energy
source. A visible light driven photocatalytic fuel cell (PFC) system comprised of photoanode and photocathode/cathode was
established for organic matters decomposition and electricity generation. Under visible illumination, the PFC system is driven by
mismatch Fermi levels between photoelectrodes with an interior bias can be produced. The photogenerated electrons of photoanode
were excited and transferred to combine with photogenerated holes of photocathode through the external circuit. Meanwhile, the
photoanode provides a negative bias for photocathode; in contrast, the photocathode provides a positive bias for photoanode then
generates electricity. At the same time, the organic matters decomposed by photogenerated holes stay in photoanode. In this study, we
investigated the photoanode modification by Ni-Fe layered double hydroxide (NiFe-LDH) for enhancing the photocatalytic fuel cell
(PFC) using Cu2O/Cu photocathode. The experimental results show that the NiFe-LDH/BiVO4 photoanode obtains a photocurrent
density of 0.620 mA/cm2 at 1 V vs. SCE in 0.5 M sodium sulfate (Na2SO4) as the electrolyte exposed under AM 1.5 solar light.
The highest short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage and maximum power density of the NiFe-LDH/BiVO4-Cu2O/CuPFC are
0.251 mA/cm2, 0.742 V, 0.186 mW/cm2, respectively. For tests using methylene blue and Na2SO4 as the model organic substrate and
supporting electrolyte, respectively, NiFe-LDH/BiVO4-Cu2O/CuPFC achieves a degradation efficiency of 81%.The NiFe-LDH/BiVO4
photoanode effectively improves the performance of the PFC in terms of wastewater degradation rate and electricity generation. The
experimental results show that the proposed heterojunction photoanode can decrease the interface recombination at the NiFe-LDH/
BiVO4 junction and extend the spectrum of visible light absorption. It is attributed to enhanced connectivity of BiVO4 particles by
the NiFe-LDH layer to avoid loss of the photoexcited electrons.
Biography
He Yun is a final year PhD student from Professor Michael Leung’s group, City University of Hong Kong. She is doing her research on photoelectrochemical system
and photocatalytic fuel cell.
He Yun, J Material Sci Eng 2017, 6:4(Suppl)
DOI: 10.4172/2169-0022-C1-068