Proceedings of nanoGe September Meeting 2017 (NFM17)
Publication date: 20th June 2016
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising approach to provide clean and storable fuel (i.e. hydrogen) directly from sunlight and water. However, major challenges still have to be overcome before commercialization can be achieved. One of the largest barriers to overcome is to obtain a stable PEC reaction in either strongly basic or acidic electrolytes without degradation of the semiconductor photoelectrodes.1 In this work, we discuss fundamental aspects of protection strategies for achieving stable solid/liquid interfaces. Besides, we also cover protection layer approaches and their stabilities for a wide variety of experimental photoelectrodes for water splitting.
Then as a case study, transparent TiO2 protected c-Si based photoelectrodes for both hydrogen and oxygen evolution (HER and OER, respectively) are discussed in-depth. The detailed working principles based on the band alignment are outlined to understand how the carriers can be injected and transferred to solid/liquid interfaces in PEC systems. Particularly, we demonstrate an extremely stable HER at pH 0 for more than 80 days under the red-light (λ ≥ 635 nm) using a TiO2 protected MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) based c-Si photocathode.2 So far, this is the longest stability reported in photocatalytic water reduction. Importantly, the long-term stability experiment contains day/night cyclic test that can evaluate the intrinsic stability of the protection layer.
Detailed analysis using SEM (scanning electronic microscopy), XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) and ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) revealed that the degradation in photocurrent mainly results from carbon contamination, which decreases reactivity and blocks the light absorption. Finally, we discuss key aspects which should be addressed in continued work on realizing a reliable and practical PEC solar water splitting device.
1. D. Bae, B. Seger, P. C. K. Vesborg, O. Hansen and I. Chorkendorff, Chem. Soc. Rev., 2017.
2. D. Bae, T. Pedersen, B. Seger, B. Iandolo, O. Hansen, P. C. K. Vesborg and I. Chorkendorff, Catal. Today, 2016.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
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.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.