LAUSR

Wet solar cells using seawater as an electrolyte have been reported as a method to generate solar power directly using marine environments.1–4) The advantage of generating power in this manner is that using seawater as an electrolyte means that the cell walls are not required to contain the electrolyte, and thus the vast area of the ocean may be utilized. However, it is unrealistic to use expensive electrode materials over such large areas; therefore, low-cost, high-performance electrode materials are needed. A great deal of research and development has been performed using titanium dioxide (TiO2) as a photocatalytic anode with the above characteristics.4) However, there are not many studies of the cathodes that constitute these cells. For example, stainless steel is superior in cost effectiveness and corrosion resistance as a cathode electrode, but it is not often used because of its low catalytic activity. One effective utilization of a stainless steel in electrodes is to use it as substrate on which a p-type semiconductor is deposited. The metal oxides used in p-type semiconductors include copper (I, II) oxide (Cu2O and CuO), nickel (II) oxide (NiO), and Effect of Oxidation Temperature on Photo-catalytic Properties of Stainless Steel Coated by Copper Oxide