LAUSR

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting has potential to efficiently convert intermittent solar energy into storable hydrogen fuel. Nevertheless, poor charge separation and transfer ability, and sluggish surface oxygen evolution reaction (OER) kinetics of the photoelectrodes severely hinder the advance in PEC performance. Herein, we reported a facile electrodeposition method to integrate Mo-doped NiFe-LDH onto NiOx/Ni protected Si photoanode for enhanced PEC water oxidation. Mo doping contributed to the increased amount of oxygen vacancies, while a dynamic surface self-reconstruction was induced by Mo leaching under PEC OER conditions. This leads to enhanced PEC performance with an onset potential of 0.87 V vs. RHE, a photocurrent density of 39.3 mA cm-2 at 1.23 V vs. RHE, a fill factor of 0.38 and a solar-to-oxygen conversion efficiency of 5.3%, along with a stability of 130 h continuous PEC reaction. Such performance is superior to that of the un-doped NiFe-LDH/NiOx/Ni/Si (4.3%), which can be attributed to the elevated interface charge separation, fast charge transfer and accelerated OER kinetics.