A Stabilized, Intrinsically Safe, 10% Efficient, Solar-Driven Water-Splitting Cell Incorporating Earth-Abundant Electrocatalysts with Steady-State pH Gradients and Product Separation Enabled by a Bipolar Membrane

Creators: Sun, Ke; Liu, Rui; Chen, Yikai; Verlage, Erik; Lewis, Nathan S.; Xiang, Chengxiang

Abstract

An efficient, stable, and intrinsically safe solar water-splitting device is demonstrated using a III–V tandem junction photoanode, an acid-stable, earth-abundant hydrogen evolution catalyst, and a bipolar membrane. The integrated photoelectrochemical cell operates under a steady-state pH gradient and achieves ≈10% solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency, >100 h of stability in a large (>1 cm^2) photoactive area in relation to most previous reports.

Additional Information

© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. Received: February 21, 2016; Revised: March 19, 2016; Published online: First published: 29 April 2016. The authors declare no competing financial interests. This material is based upon work performed by the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, a DOE Energy Innovation Hub, supported through the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under Award Number DE-SC0004993, as well as grant number 1225 from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The authors also thank N. Dalleska (Caltech) for his assistance with measurements and analysis of the ICPMS data. The authors also thank S. Lu, K. Walczak for gas-crossover measurements, R.J.R. Jones for designing the flow-cell reactor, X. Zhou for preparation of the ALD TiO_2 coatings, and J. C. Crompton for preparation of the CoP-coated metal meshes.

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