Nickel Hydroxide Decorated Hydrogenated Zinc Oxide Nanorod Arrays with Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Performance

• Hydrogenated ZnO (H-ZnO) nanorods exhibited enhanced performance than ZnO nanorods.
• Ni(OH)2 could further improve the photoelectrochemical property of H-ZnO nanorods.
• The Ni(OH)2/H-ZnO photoanode achieved a photocurrent density of 910 μA cm−2 at 0.4 V.
• The Ni(OH)2/H-ZnO photoanode has a good stability.

Photoelectrochemical water splitting over transition metal oxide photoanodes has attracted increasing attention as environmentally friendly and cost-effective method to produce hydrogen. In this work, we demonstrate that hydrogenation and nickel hydroxide coating can significantly improve the photoelectrochemical properties of ZnO nanorod photoanode. The nickel hydroxide decorated hydrogenated ZnO (Ni(OH)2/H-ZnO) nanorods exhibit substantially higher photoelectrochemical performance than the pristine ZnO and H-ZnO nanorods, which achieve a remarkable photocurrent density of ∼910 μA cm−2 at 0.4 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) under white light irradiation. Moreover, the Ni(OH)2/H-ZnO nanorods has a good stability without any photocurrent decay after 3 h irradiation.

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