Upscaling of integrated photoelectrochemical water-splitting devices to large areas

作者：Turan Bugra; Becker Jan Philipp; Urbain Felix; Finger Friedhelm; Rau Uwe; Haas Stefan

来源：Nature Communications, 2016, 7(1): 12681.

DOI：10.1038/ncomms12681

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Photoelectrochemical water splitting promises both sustainable energy generation and energy storage in the form of hydrogen. However, the realization of this vision requires laboratory experiments to be engineered into a large-scale technology. Up to now only few concepts for scalable devices have been proposed or realized. Here we introduce and realize a concept which, by design, is scalable to large areas and is compatible with multiple thin-film photovoltaic technologies. The scalability is achieved by continuous repetition of a base unit created by laser processing. The concept allows for independent optimization of photovoltaic and electrochemical part. We demonstrate a fully integrated, wireless device with stable and bias-free operation for 40 h. Furthermore, the concept is scaled to a device area of 64 cm<jats:sup>2</jats:sup> comprising 13 base units exhibiting a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 3.9%. The concept and its successful realization may be an important contribution towards the large-scale application of artificial photosynthesis.</jats:p>

• 出版日期2016-9