A Study of Photoelectrolysis of Water by Use of Titanium Oxide Films

산화티타늄피막의 광 전기분해 특성에 대한 연구

Pure titanium rods were oxidized by anodic oxidation, furnace oxidation and flame oxidation and used as a electrode in the photodecomposition of water. The maximum photoelectrochemical conversion efficiency(${\eta}$) was found for flame oxidized electrode ($1200^{\circ}C$ for 2 min in air), 0.8 %. Anodically oxidized electrodes have minimum photoelectrochemical conversion efficiencies, 0.3 %. Furnace oxidized electrode ($800^{\circ}C$ for 10min in air) has 0.5% phtoelectrochemical efficiency and shows a band-gap energy of about 2.9eV. The efficiency shows a parallelism with the presence of the metallic interstitial compound $TiO_{O+X}$(X < 0.33) at the metal-semiconductor interface, the thickness of the sub oxide layer and that of the external rutile scale.