Upscaling of integrated photoelectrochemical water-splitting devices to large areas.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27601181.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms12681 and PMC identifier 5023961.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Photoelectrochemical water splitting promises both sustainable energy generation and energy storage in the form of hydrogen. However, the realization of this vision requires laboratory experiments to be engineered into a large-scale technology. Up to now only few concepts for scalable devices have been proposed or realized. Here we introduce and realize a concept which, by design, is scalable to large areas and is compatible with multiple thin-film photovoltaic technologies. The scalability is achieved by continuous repetition of a base unit created by laser processing. The concept allows for independent optimization of photovoltaic and electrochemical part. We demonstrate a fully integrated, wireless device with stable and bias-free operation for 40 h. Furthermore, the concept is scaled to a device area of 64 cm(2) comprising 13 base units exhibiting a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 3.9%. The concept and its successful realization may be an important contribution towards the large-scale application of artificial photosynthesis.