Oxide Semiconductors for Solar Hydrogen Production: Iron Oxide

Increasing energy demand and growing environmental concerns over the emission of green house gases drive the research to find a new, sustainable and clean energy source. While no single source of energy can fulfill the global energy demand, sunlight has the capacity to meet this challenge. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting using sunlight and semiconductor photoelectrode is considered as an emerging technology for solar energy transformation into clean and high energy fuel such as hydrogen. To fabricate a high efficiency PEC cell, it is essentially required to investigate the structural and optoelectronic properties of the electrode material. Iron oxide has got recent attention as photoelectrode for water splitting reaction owing to its intriguing properties. This book attempts to provide various strategies of controlling the structural and optoelectronic properties of hematite films for high performance PEC cells. A brief introduction to the PEC cell is presented, followed by various synthesis approaches to control the morphology and photoactivity of iron oxide films. This book should be useful to researchers working in clean energy conversion and related disciplines.