| Presently, most of the energy is generated from fossil fuel, which results in CO2 emissions and not infinite. In order for achieving sustainable life, renewable source of energy must be found and developed. Solar water splitting is one of the candidates, as this process only requires the use of solar energy and inexhaustible water available on the earth. Moreover, exclusive by-product of the use of hydrogen technology is water. Enormous efforts have been used to pursue the use of various technologies to achieve efficient solar water splitting. However, this solar water splitting technology is still far from other dominant energy sources attributed to the difficult requirements for obtaining working electrode with desirable properties. The desired properties of the working electrodes require the need of high corrosive resistance, suitable band gap, and appropriate band edge positions for enabling the water splitting process. To address this limitation, InGaN alloy is investigated as one of the key materials for achieving electrodes suitable for solar water splitting. Band positions of the InGaN in the context of the hydrogen and oxygen redox potential are found as suitable, and band gap energy of this alloy can be adjusted by varying the In-content. In addition, InGaN has high corrosion resistivity due to the small lattice constant of the alloy, due to the stability of this alloy in aqueous solution from the strong inter-atomic bonding. Nevertheless, there has been very few research works performed on this InGaN alloy for solar water splitting experiments. In this thesis, basic principle of the solar water splitting is presented with current research on GaN and InGaN for the photo-electrode in the PEC cell. Preliminary experimental demonstrations of the solar water splitting process by employing the III-Nitride alloys are also presented, and the results showed promising nitride semiconductors alloys for solar water splitting applications. |
