Desorption retarded optically complemented multiple dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical water splitting system with enhanced performance

•Versatile approach to design dye-sensitized photoanode for DSPEC water splitting.•Multiple dyes are anchored over semiconductor via click triazole linkage.•Presence of click linkage prevents dye desorption and increases photo-stability.•Achieved ABPE ∼1.0% at 0.7 V applied bias with (N719 + +FITC)@P25-TiO2@ITO photoanode.

Dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical (DSPEC) device for solar hydrogen generation is gaining significant attention. However, there are some fundamental challenges such as dye desorption, aggregation and photo-stability impediment its long term performance. To circumvent the subset of these challenges herein, we demonstrate click chemistry based fabrication methodology to develop optically complemented multiple dyes anchored P25-TiO2 scaffold over ITO plate. A photocurrent density of ∼2.1 mA/cm2 and ABPE of ∼1.0% have been obtained with optically complemented multiple dyes (N719 and FITC) clicked P25-TiO2@ITO photoanode compared to single N719 (ABPE ∼ 0.72%), N749 (ABPE ∼ 0.60%), and N3 (ABPE ∼ 0.51%) at 0.7 V applied bias. We trust that proposed approach can pave a pathway to anchor combination of different optically complemented dyes over number of semiconductor photocatalyst.

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