Scaling up high efficiencies to larger photoelectrode areas by photoelectrochemical Schlenk cell functionalisation
Matthias May a
a Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle, 18, Tübingen, Germany
Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2024 Conference (MATSUS24)
#SolFuelScale - Practical aspects of solar fuel production: scalability, stability & outdoor operation
Barcelona, Spain, 2024 March 4th - 8th
Organizers: Fatwa Abdi and Virgil Andrei
Invited Speaker, Matthias May, presentation 384
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsus.2024.384
Publication date: 18th December 2023

High conversion efficiencies are key for solar fuel technologies to compete with natural photosynthesis. Here, photoelectrochemical approaches should be in a similar efficiency range as the combination of photovoltaics with electrolysis. So far, the highest photoelectrochemical solar-to-hydrogen efficiencies (STH) are achieved using multi-junction solar absorbers based on the III-V semiconductor material class. Reported areas, however, only lie in the range of up to 0.3 cm2 as surface defects quickly lead to corrosion and failure of the device. I will present our latest results where we demonstrate significantly higher areas at >18% STH using a photoelectrochemical surface functionalisation approach in a Schlenk cell. The higher level of interface quality and reproducibility is a prerequisite for scale-up and optical in situ control with electrochemical reflection anisotropy spectroscopy contributes to this development [1,2]. Furthermore, I will discuss some of the challenges and potential pitfalls related to the benchmarking of multi-junction solar water splitting devices which are still present in the literature.

 

This work was supported by the German Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

(BMBF), project ‘‘H2Demo’’ (no. 03SF0619K) as well as the German Research Foundation (DFG) under project number 434023472.

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