Overall Solar-Driven Water Splitting with Organic Semiconductor Bulk Heterojunction Based Devices
Nicolas Johannes Diercks a, Jin Su Park a, Benjamin Goldman a, Jun-Ho Yum a, Kevin Sivula a
a Laboratory for Molecular Engineering of Optoelectronic Nanomaterials, Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2024 Conference (MATSUSFall24)
#PhotoDeg - Materials and devices for stable and efficient solar fuels
Lausanne, Switzerland, 2024 November 12th - 15th
Organizers: Sophia Haussener, Sandra Luber and Simone Pokrant
Poster, Nicolas Johannes Diercks, 393
Publication date: 28th August 2024

Developing inexpensive, robust, and efficient light harvesting material systems is imperative to make direct solar-to-fuel energy conversion by photoelectrochemical (PEC) or heterogeneous photocatalytic (PC) approaches economically viable. In recent years, organic semiconductors have emerged as promising materials for application in this field due to their molecular tunability and scalable processability. The bulk heterojunction (BHJ) concept, which has proven successful in the field of organic photovoltaics, offers a promising route to inexpensive and high-performance production of solar hydrogen by the PEC or PC approach.

In this presentation, the design and performance of organic semiconductor-based BHJ photoelectrodes for both solar-driven water reduction[1] and oxidation[2] will be discussed. The integration of a BHJ photoanode and photocathode into one bias-free tandem PEC device for overall water splitting (OWS)[3] and the use of a BHJ deposited on a novel, transparent porous gas-diffusion electrode for H2 production in the gas-phase[4] are also presented. In addition, an approach utilizing BHJs in a PC sheet assembly for OWS is introduced. We demonstrate OWS at ca. 1% solar-to-H2 efficiency and discuss insights gained regarding the stability of BHJs for PEC or PC applications. Finally, the challenges toward the further development of BHJ-based systems for industrially viable OWS are examined.

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