Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 84: Focus Session: Semiconductor Materials and Nanostructure for Photocatalysis

O 84.1: Hauptvortrag

Donnerstag, 23. März 2017, 09:30–10:00, POT 51

Solar-driven photoelectrochemical water splitting and carbon dioxide reduction — •Joel Ager — Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA USA — Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UC Berkeley

Solar to fuel conversion, if it could be performed in a sustainable manner, could provide an alternative to mankind's currently unsustainable use of fossil fuels. Solar fuel generation by photoelectrochemical (PEC) methods is a potentially promising approach to address this fundamental and important challenge.

While there are number of laboratory-scale solar to hydrogen (STH) conversion devices whose efficiencies exceed 10%, there are very few reports of long term operational stability. In this context, the long term stability of protective coatings for water oxidation photoanodes will be discussed, with an emphasis on the experimental procedures required to predict the operational lifetime.

Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction is comparatively less mature as a technology and hence the challenges are more basic. Indeed, there are very few report of systems which produce usable fuel products with high selectivity. Recently, building on work performed with Cu nanocubes, we have designed Cu nanostructures which achieve up to 70% conversion of carbon dioxide to C2+ products. When coupled with high efficiency solar cells, overall energy conversion efficiencies exceeding that of natural photosynthesis can be achieved.