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KFM: Fachverband Kristalline Festkörper und deren Mikrostruktur

KFM 27: Postersession KFM

KFM 27.4: Poster

Donnerstag, 15. März 2018, 15:00–17:00, Poster E

Towards a proof of water splitting via pyroelectrolysis — •Thomas Köhler, Wolfram Münchgesang, Erik Mehner, Juliane Hanzig, Hartmut Stöcker, and Dirk C. Meyer — Institut für Experimentelle Physik, Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg, Leipziger Str. 23, 09599 Freiberg, Germany

The generation of hydrogen through water electrolysis has been understood for a long time and will be used for large-scale conversion of electrical energy into chemical energy in the future. The direct conversion of residual heat into hydrogen is completely new to our knowledge, but feasible when making use of pyroelectric materials. In pyroelectrolysis, a cyclic temperature excitation generates an electric field between the crystal surfaces due to an imbalance between polarization and compensation charges. For water electrolysis, this electric field must exceed the redox potential of water.

A pyroelectolysis cell was developed for investigating the interaction of congruent LiTaO₃ with aqueous media, in order to record the surface potential during the temperature change and the reaction rate of the pyroelectolysis. A sufficiently high voltage difference between the opposite crystal surfaces caused by cyclic temperature changes was observed. This satisfies the basic requirement for water splitting on the pyroelectric surface. Cyclic voltammetry of the electrolyte solution was applied for electrochemical detection of the water splitting reaction. To finally prove water splitting, the increasing educt concentration in the electrolyte solution would be monitored as a change of the oxidation and reduction peaks.