Efficient photovoltaic-driven clean hydrogen production

R&D Focus Areas:
Electrolysis, Photochemical and photocatalytic processes, Advanced manufacturing

Lead Organisation:
The University of Sydney

Partners:
University of New South Wales
California Institute of Technology (United States)

Status:
Active

Start date:
June 2020

Completion date:
May 2024

Key contacts:
Professor Anita Ho-Baillie: anita.ho-baillie@sydney.edu.au

Funding:
AUD$437,000 – Australian Research Council

Project total cost:
AUD$900,000 – combined cash and in-kind contribution

Project summary description:
This project aims to develop a novel, low cost and high performance monolithic photovoltaic electrochemical (PV-EC) device for clean hydrogen production. This device tailors and integrates low cost and high-performance thin film and tandem photovoltaics achieving high solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency towards 20%.

Earth abundant and stable catalysts will be developed in this project to replace noble based catalysts, as well as novel architectures for electrical contacting, feed-through and catalyst integration in PV-EC devices. These innovations offer high performance and the potential for device costs 2 to 3 orders of magnitude lower than recent world record photoelectrochemical devices. While the original project plan is based on the development of water splitting for hydrogen production, new processes for hydrogen production other than water splitting has been developed and patented.

As a part of addressing these challenges, new processes for clean hydrogen production through the polymerisation, reforming scrap metal, and electrodeposit metal oxides from refining ore other than water splitting has been developed and patented.

A novel solar-driven hydrogen production process is successfully demonstrated by replacing water splitting with a polymerisation reaction where monomer is oxidized to polymer on the anode and protons are reduced to hydrogen gas at the cathode. The process has multiple advantages. As the polymer is a solid product that can be harvested from powder dispersed in the solution or by electro-plating directly onto a surface of interest, the process eliminates the use of expensive ion-exchange membrane or separator. In addition, the polymer is of substantially higher value than oxygen.

Another technical advantage is the much lower applied bias of 1.05 V which is much lower than what is typically required (>1.5V) for traditional water splitting reaction. This also means that single junction solar cell can be used for hydrogen production as demonstrated successfully in this work using a perovskite solar cell. Also, low-cost earth-abundant cobalt phosphide (CoP) catalyst can be used for this process.

Related publications and key links:

  1. Hongjun Chen, et al, Anita W. Y. Ho-Baillie, Antonio Tricoli, Integrating Low-Cost Earth-Abundant Co-Catalysts with Encapsulated Perovskite Solar Cells for Efficient and Stable Overall Solar Water Splitting, https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202008245
  2. Hongjun Chen, et al, Anita W. Y. Ho-Baillie, Solar‐Driven Co‐Production of Hydrogen and Value‐Add Conductive Polyaniline Polymer, Adv. Funct. Mater.2022, 32, 2204807, https:// doi/full/10.1002/adfm.202204807
  3. Hongjun Chen, Anita W. Y. Ho-Baillie, Solar driven production of clean hydrogen, SSRN, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4478017

Patent Applications:

  1. Solar-driven production of clean hydrogen, University of Sydney Ref. 2021-039, Provisional Patent AU2021903031
  2. Solar-driven co-production of hydrogen, University of Sydney CDIP Ref. 2021-111.
  3. Solar-driven clean hydrogen production, University of Sydney CDIP Ref. 2021-136, Provisional Patent AU 2022900923

Higher degree studies supported:
One undergraduate research project student is supported.

 

Reviewed: May 2024