Highly efficient and low cost photovoltaic-electrolysis (PVE) system to generate hydrogen by harvesting the full spectrum of sunlight

R&D Focus Areas:
Electrolysis, Thermal water splitting, Techno-economic evaluation

Lead Organisation:
University of New South Wales (Sydney)

Partners:
Raygen Resources Pty Ltd; Beijing Zhongchao Haiqi Technology Co. Ltd, China; Shenzhen Kohodo Sunshine Renewable Energy Co. Ltd, China

Status:
Completed

Start date:
August 2018

Completion date:
April 2023

Key contacts:
Scientia Professor Rose Amal: r.amal@unsw.edu.au

Funding:
AU$1,319,105 – Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)

 Project total cost:
AUD$5,040,736 – combined cash and in-kind contributions

Project summary description:
Photovoltaic electrolysis (PVE) is a promising approach to produce renewable hydrogen for export from sunlight and water. The main obstacle to utilising photovoltaic electrolysis to produce hydrogen is the high cost and modest efficiency. The project aims to lower the cost of renewable hydrogen produced via PVE by improving the energy efficiency of transition metal-based alkaline water electrolysers and the overall solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency of PVE systems. This approach is anticipated to lead to the development of an integrated PVE system demonstrating an overall solar-to hydrogen conversion efficiency >30%.

Related publications and key links:

• A Fully Reversible Water Electrolyzer Cell Made Up from FeCoNi (Oxy)hydroxide Atomic Layers, Advanced Energy Materials, 9(29), 1901312, 2019 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aenm.201901312
• Electronically Modified Atomic Sites Within a Multicomponent Co/Cu Composite for Efficient Oxygen Electroreduction, Advanced Energy Materials, 11(17), 2100303, 2021 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aenm.202100303
• Recent advances and the design criteria of metal sulfide photocathodes and photoanodes for photoelectrocatalysis, Journal of Materials Chemistry, 9, 20277, 2021 https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/TA/D1TA05407D
• Anchoring Sites Engineering in Single-Atom Catalysts for Highly Efficient Electrochemical Energy Conversion Reactions, Advanced Materials, 33, 2102801, 2021 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202102801
• Numerical Analysis of Hydrogen Bubble Behavior in a Zero-Gap Alkaline Water Electrolyzer Flow Channel, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2021, 60 (33), 12429–12446 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.1c02554
• Designing optimal integrated electricity supply configurations for renewable hydrogen generation in Australia, iScience, 24(6), 102539  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221005071?via%3Dihub
• Techno-economic Analysis of Hydrogen Electrolysis from Off-Grid Stand-Alone Photovoltaics Incorporating Uncertainty Analysis, Cell Reports Phys. Sci., 1(10), 100209, 2020 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666386420302241?via%3Dihub
• Lin, Z., Han, C., O’Connell, G. E. P., & Lu, X. (2023). Recent Progress on Electrode Design for Efficient Electrochemical Valorisation of CO2, O2, and N2 [Review]. Angewandte Chemie – International Edition, 62(38), Article e202301435.https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202301435
• Zhao, Y., Kumar, P. V., Tan, X., Lu, X., Zhu, X., Jiang, J., Pan, J., Xi, S., Yang, H. Y., Ma, Z., Wan, T., Chu, D., Jiang, W., Smith, S. C., Amal, R., Han, Z., & Lu, X. (2022). Modulating Pt-O-Pt atomic clusters with isolated cobalt atoms for enhanced hydrogen evolution catalysis [Article]. Nature Communications, 13(1), Article 2430. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30155-4

Higher degree studies supported:
Three PhD students at University of New South Wales (Sydney) are supported by this project.

 

Reviewed: July 2024