I am currently investigating non-doped and doped CuWO4 for water splitting applications.
Usually the onset potential is quite close to the measured flat band potential. Normally, however, the onset potential is 0.1-0.2 V higher than the flat band potential as interracial charge transfer kinetics are slow and thus a slight overpotential is always required.
But for the doped samples, the onset potential is LOWER than the measured flat band potential. Why is this happening?
The measured flat band is 0.76-0.78 V (vs RHE). The measured onset potential is 0.61 V (vs RHE)