Electronic structure and experimental benchmarking of aluminum spinels for solar water splitting

A computational methodology for screening aluminum-based spinel oxides for photoelectrochemical water splitting has been developed by combining HSE06 and PBE+U calculations. The method, which can be extended to other ternary oxides, provides values for formation energies, band gaps, band edge positions, and carrier effective masses. The formation energies indicate that the Al spinels of Mg, Co, Ni, and Zn (successfully synthesized using a sol-gel method) are among the most stable in the series. Except for the Mg and Zn cases, the electronic structures of the spinels are rather similar, with band gaps separating occupied and empty 3d metal states. The charge-transfer band gap values are found to be above 3 eV, limiting the use of these materials in solar water splitting, although an estimate of the band edge positions indicates that, in general, both conduction band electrons and valence band holes can promote water reduction and oxidation, respectively. The effective masses of the charge carriers suggest that the spinels are n-type semiconductors as experimentally demonstrated. Importantly, both the UV–vis spectra and the photoelectrochemical results qualitatively agree with the theoretical electronic structure. In general vein, this work demonstrates the potential of theoretical screening for the development and selection of new photoelectrode materials based on ternary oxides for their application in solar water splitting.