Atmospheric electrostatic induction on carrier transfer in volumetric photoelectrochemical system with MXene-modified electrodes

With WO 3 /BiVO 4 /MXene ternary composite layers as a working electrode, a smart volumetric photoelectrochemical system using electrostatic bias voltage inducted by atmospheric electric field was developed. Under single sun illumination and 0.8 V hardwired bias, the current response of the ternary electrode is 1.15 mA cm −2 , which is 1.31 times higher than that of the WO 3 /BiVO 4 electrode, mainly due to the higher charge transfer rate between the MXene layer and the BiVO 4 structure. Further, the response of the ternary electrode increases to 1.39 mA cm −2 at an extra atmospheric electric field of 1100 V m −1 . It can be demonstrated that the effect of the atmospheric electric field can be regarded as an extra hardwired bias of 0.101 V in the system. The experimental results reveal that the native carriers, including inducted electron/holes in MXene and BiVO 4 , and carriers in the electrolyte, are all effectively excited by the electrostatic induction of atmospheric electric field.