Black TiO Photoanodes for Direct Methanol Photo Fuel Cells.

Photocatalytic fuel cells (PFCs) are considered the next generation of energy converter devices, since they can harvest solar energy through relatively low-cost semiconductor material to convert the chemical energy of renewable fuels and oxidants directly into electricity. Here, we report black TiO nanoparticle (NP) photoanodes for simple single-compartment PFCs and microfluidic photo fuel cells (μPFCs) fed by methanol. We show that Ti and oxygen vacancy (O) defects at the TiO NPs are easily controlled by annealing in a NaBH-containing atmosphere.