Photoelectrochemical analysis of titanium dioxide by using oxalic acid as a sacrificial donor

Photoelectrochemical (pec) water splitting is a very promising green method produce solar fuel. titanium dioxide (tio2) has been widely used as photocatalyst fothis type of reaction. improving the performance of tio2 for pec water splitting has beeongoing and addition of sacrificial donor especially from waste is an attractive optioto achieve this. oxalic acid is one component in organic waste stream that can bused as sacrificial donor. the tio2 thin films has been fabricated by coating tio2 paston fluorine tin oxide (fto) glass surface. the morphology of the tio2 thin films werporous and rough with uniform particles size with crystallite size of about 20 nm andominant anatase peak. the tio2 photoelectrode undergo pec testing to measure photolectroactivity by using oxalic acid as a sacrificial donor in two different type electrolytes which are distilled water and sodium sulfate (na2so4) aqueous solution. thphotocurrent produced without addition of oxalic acid is much lower than with thacid. the saturation photocurrent for aqueous na2so4 solution and water electrolyte 0.1 ma/cm2 and negligible respectively. while the photocurrent for addition of oxaliacid in na2so4 aqueous solution is 0.5 ma/cm2 and the photocurrent for oxalic acid water only is 0.9 ma/cm2,which is almost double compared to in na2so4 and tenfolin water only. the highest photocurrent produced by tio2 photoelectrode is by additioof oxalic acid in aqueous (h2o) electrolyte. © 2017 penerbit utm press. all rights reserved.