Pulsed electrophoretic deposition of reduced graphene oxide on BiVO4 for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting

In this work, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was deposited on BiVO 4 (BVO-rGO) photoanodes by pulsed electrophoretic deposition (PEPD) to achieve controlled and uniform surface coverage. By varying deposition time, rGO loading was effectively tuned, and 45 s at 60 V sample showed the best photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance. Structural, morphological, and surface analyses confirm successful heterostructure formation with improved interfacial contact. The optimized photoanode delivered a photocurrent density of 2.41 mA cm −2 at 1.23 V vs RHE, which was 1.85 times that of pristine BVO. The improved performance is attributed to enhanced charge separation and interfacial electron transport. These results show that PEPD is effective for optimizing BVO-rGO photoanodes.