4.8 Article

Improved performance and stability of photoelectrochemical water-splitting Si system using a bifacial design to decouple light harvesting and electrocatalysis

Journal

NANO ENERGY
Volume 70, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.104478

Keywords

Water spliting; Bifacial; Photoelectrodes; Solar cells; Photoelectrochemical

Funding

  1. King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
  2. KAUST Sensor Initiatives
  3. KAUST Solar Center
  4. KAUST Catalysis Center
  5. US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering [DE-FG02-09ER46664]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen is a promising way for the production of clean, and storable form of fuel but the PEC efficiency has remained low. Herein, we demonstrate enhanced light harvesting, charge carrier separation/transfer, and catalyst management with bifacial design for the Si-based photocathodes to achieve best-in-class hydrogen generation with excellent electrochemical stability. Decoupling the light harvesting side from the electrocatalytic surface nullifies parasitic light absorption and enables Si photocathodes that exhibit a photocurrent density of 39.01 mA/cm(2) and stability over 370 h in 1 M H2SO4(aq) electrolyte due to fully covered a 15 nm Pt without any intentional protective layer. Furthermore, the bifacial Si photocathode system with semi-transparent Pt layer of 5 nm developed herein are capable of collecting sunlight not only on the light harvesting side but also on the back side of the device, resulting in a photocurrent density of 61.20 mA/cm(2) under bifacial two-sun illumination, which yields 56.88% of excess hydrogen when compared to the monofacial PEC system. Combining the bifacial design with surface texturing and antireflection coating enables excellent omnidirectional light harvesting capability with a record hydrogen (photocurrent) generation, which provides a promising way to realize practical PEC water splitting applications.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.8
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available