Fabrication of titanium dioxide nanostructures and the application for water splitting.

• Main Author: Wang, Tianyi.
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Nanotechnology; DRNTU::Science::General::Economic and business aspects
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44533
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The demand of renewable energy has again become a heated topic in both the scientific and industrial communities. One of the attempts is by using the photoelectrochemical cells (PECs); one can transfer the solar light directly to the hydrogen gas. At current stage, a large amount of these PECs are being made by the nanocrystalline materials such as titanium dioxide (TiO2). However, the synthesis of devices is facing a problem of high fabrication cost. In this project, we report on the morphology control and photoelectrochemical characteristics of rutile-TiO2 based PECs which fabricated by a cheaper mechanism of hydrothermal solution growth. TiO2 device will then be coated with cadmium sulfide quantum dots in order to enhance the light absorption ability of our devices. Water splitting performance will be measured and analyzed for both TiO2 and CdS-coated TiO2 cases. In the end, a comparison between the results of hydrothermal growth and chemical vapor deposition will be revealed and discussed.