Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV18)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.hopv.2018.159
Publication date: 21st February 2018
Molecular hydrogen produced via solar energy is emerging as a prominent way to convert and store the conspicuous, yet intermittent, amount of energy that the Sun daily irradiates on Earth. Hybrid Organic photoelectrochemical (HOPEC) water splitting is gaining momentum in this field, benefiting of the organic semiconductors properties over their inorganic counterpart. Their low cost, stability and ease of large-area production help overcoming the limitations of standard photoelectrochemical water splitting. The potential of hybrid organic systems has been proven by our previous works1. Indeed, excellent photocurrent performances2 or extended operational lifetime3 have been obtained through careful optimization of device architecture.
Our latest advancements aim to the application of this technology and to the validation of materials which can reduce the fabrication costs and ease the scalability. Innovative photocathodes architectures employing a small molecule-based hole selective layer (HSL) and exploiting the properties of advanced organic semiconductors in the bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) are herein presented. Selective layers play a relevant role in exploiting the performances of a given donor-acceptor blend. Given its suitable energetic alignment and excellent hole mobility, copper phthalocyanine (CuPC) fits as a promising candidate for this application4. Electrochemical tests were carried out to assess the stability of this material, which was then successfully employed as hole selective contact in combination with the P3HT:PCBM BHJ.
Furthermore, our team investigated the photoelectrochemical behaviour of materials which are currently obtaining excellent results in the world of organic photovoltaic (OPV). Among them we can list the high-performance photoabsorbers PCE11 and PCDTBT, and the non-fullerene acceptors IDTBR and IDFBR, which were found to be responsible of a sharp increase in the open circuit voltage in OPV devices5. A careful electrochemical characterization is performed on each material in half-devices configuration and, finally, in an optimized photocathode architecture.
To test our devices in a complete water-splitting system we finally coupled our state-of-the-art photocathode2 with a high-performing perovskite6 in a tandem configuration. The resulting HOPEC-PV system successfully performs the full water splitting reaction without the application of any external bias with a photocurrent density well above the 1mA/cm2 threshold.
With this contribution we want to stress the potential of this field, encouraging the research of dedicated materials for this peculiar application.
1.Fumagalli,F. J.MaterChem.A,4, 2178(2016)
2.Rojas,H. EnergyEnviron.Sci.,9, 3710-3723(2016)
3.Mezzetti,A. FaradayDiscuss.,198, 433-448(2017)
4.Thalluri,G.K.V.V. Dalt.Trans. 41, 11419(2012)
5.Baran,D. EnergyEnviron.Sci. 9, 3783–3793(2016)
6.Tao,C. Adv.Mater. 29, 1–7(2017)
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