A TiO 2 nanorod and perylene diimide based inorganic/organic nanoheterostructure photoanode for photoelectrochemical urea oxidation.

Visible light-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) urea oxidation using inorganic/organic nano-heterostructure (NH) photoanodes is an attractive method for hydrogen (H 2 ) production. In this article, inorganic/organic NHs (TiO 2 /PDIEH) consisting of a N , N -bis(2-ethylhexyl)perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diimide (PDIEH) thin layer over TiO 2 nanorods (NRs) were fabricated for the PEC urea oxidation reaction (UOR). In these NHs, a PDIEH layer was anchored on TiO 2 NR arrays using the spin-coating technique, which is beneficial for the uniform deposition of PDIEH on TiO 2 NRs. Uniform deposition facilitated adequate interface contact between PDIEH and TiO 2 NRs. TiO 2 /PDIEH NHs achieved a high current density of 1.1 mA cm -2 at 1.96 V RHE compared to TiO 2 NRs. TiO 2 /PDIEH offers long-term stability under light illumination with 90.21% faradaic efficiency. TiO 2 /PDIEH exhibits a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 0.52%. This outcome opens up new opportunities for inorganic/organic NHs for high-performance PEC urea oxidation.