Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV14)
Publication date: 1st March 2014
Efficient storage of energies from renewable resources is a crucial step to truly replace fossil fuels and face the increasing needs for energy. Chemical bonds such as in hydrogen gas appear to be the ideal carrier to store solar energy. Its carbon-free energy cycle involves solar-powered water electrolysis to produce hydrogen, which can be used in a fuel cell to recover electricity on demand, with only water as byproduct.
Photo-electrochemical cells (PEC) have been designed to perform both light harvesting and water splitting, thus artificially mimicking photosynthesis. Made of one or two photo-electrodes, they are theoretically higher than a system built from two separate devices (solar panel and electrolyzer). Many photo-electrodes have been studied,1yet organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells have never been used in a PEC, though a triple-junction OPV cell has been used once, to power an electrolyzer.2
Therefore, we designed a new type of photocathode for the reduction part of water splitting (HER, for hydrogen evolution reaction). It consists of an organic solar cell (P3HT: PCBM) coupled with an earth-abundant catalyst for HER, MoS3. Our primary goal was to entirely replace the aluminum cathode, typically used for OPV cell, by the catalyst, which would then act as both electron-collecting layer and catalyst for HER. In contact with acidic water, photocurrents of 100 µA/cm² at positive potentials vs the thermodynamical potential of H+/H2 have been obtained with this solution-processed photocathode.3
To increase efficiency and stability, an aluminum/titanium bilayer was evaporated between the OPV layer and the catalyst resulting in photocurrents of more than 7 mA/cm².
Walter, M. G.; Warren, E. L.; McKone, J. R.; Boettcher, S. W.; Mi, Q.; Santori, E. A.; Lewis, N. S. Chem. Rev. 2010, 110, 6446. Esiner, S.; van Eersel, H.; Wienk, M. M.; Janssen, R. A. J.; Eersel, H. Van. Adv. Mater. 2013, 25, 2932. Bourgeteau, T.; Tondelier, D.; Geffroy, B.; Brisse, R.; Laberty-Robert, C.; Campidelli, S.; de Bettignies, R.; Artero, V.; Palacin, S.; Jousselme, B. Energy Environ. Sci. 2013, 6, 2706.
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International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
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