Electropolymerized thiophene-based devices for photocatalytic hydrogen gas harvesting

We present thiopene-based devices made by spincoating and electropolymerization for usage in solarpowered, photocatalytic hydrogen gas (H
₂
) harvesting. Two innovative claims achieved in this work include: (1) first demonstration of electropolymerized photoelectrochemical devices for water splitting, and (2) drastically improved performance of EP-PEC devices over spin-coated PEC H
₂
harvesters, achieving >0.5V improvement in onset voltage (V
_∞
, bias voltage needed to produce photocurrent), with V
_∞
of 0V vs. Ag/AgCl. As such, this work opens up a new class of material and device fabrication for cheaper and efficient PEC H
₂
harvesting systems.