Engineering Commons^™

Electrocatalyst Decorated Hematite Nanowire Arrays For Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting., Erica James

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Solar power is a leading option for renewable energy. However, storing solar energy is one of the leading pitfalls in this field, and one viable option is to store solar energy in chemical bonds, for example in H2 via water splitting. Hematite, α-Fe2O3, is one of the possible semiconductors that has been researched to drive photoelectrolysis of water. Hematite alone is not a decent material for photoelectrolysis because of the large activation energy required to begin the reaction. To make hematite more useful for photoelectrolysis an electrocatalyst, such as nickel oxide, is needed. In this experiment, nickel (II) nitrate was …