Water Splitting: Emergent Degradation Phenomena Demonstrated on Resilient, Flexible, and Scalable Integrated Photoelectrochemical Cells (Adv. Energy Mater. 48/2020)

Journal Article · Tue Dec 22 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Advanced Energy Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202070197· OSTI ID:1869283

Kistler, Tobias A. ^[1]; Zeng, Guosong ^[2]; Young, James L. ^[3]; Weng, Lien‐Chun ^[4]; Aldridge, Chase ^[3]; Wyatt, Keenan ^[3]; Steiner, Myles A. ^[3]; Solorzano, Oscar ^[4]; Houle, Frances A. ^[2]; Toma, Francesca M. ^[2]; Weber, Adam Z. ^[2]; Deutsch, Todd G. ^[3]; Danilovic, Nemanja ^[2]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Technical Univ. of Munich (Germany)
2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
3. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
4. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

We report Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting provides a pathway to generate sustainable clean fuels using the two most abundant resources on Earth: sunlight and water. Currently, most of the successful models of PEC cells are still fabricated on small scales near 1 cm², which largely limits the mass deployment of solar-fuel production. Here, the scale-up to 8 cm² of an integrated PEC (IPEC) device is demonstrated and its performance compared to a 1 cm² IPEC cell, using state-of-the-art iridium and platinum catalysts with III-V photoabsorbers. The initial photocurrents at 1 sun were 8 and 7 mA cm^-2 with degradation rates of 0.60 and 0.47 mA cm^-2 day^-1, during unbiased operation for the 1 and 8 cm² devices, respectively. Evaluating under outdoor and indoor conditions at two US National Laboratories revealed similar results, evidencing the reproducibility of this design’s performance. Furthermore, the emerging degradation mechanisms during scale-up are investigated and the knowledge gained from this work will provide feedback to the broader community, since PEC device durability is a limiting factor in its potential future deployment.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Transportation Office. Fuel Cell Technologies Office; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231; AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1869283
• Journal Information: Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 10, Issue 48; ISSN 1614-6832
• Publisher: Wiley
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

25 ENERGY STORAGE
PEC cell scale-up
durability
reproducibility
on-sun testing
water splitting