Transparent cuprous oxide photocathode enabling a stacked tandem cell for unbiased water splitting

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2015

Authors

Paula Dias (Author) FEUP; João Azevedo (Author) FEUP; Luísa Andrade (Author) FEUP; Adélio Mendes (Author) FEUP; Marcel Schreier (Author) Other; S. David Tilley (Author) Other; Jingshan Luo (Author) Other; Dongqin Bi (Author) Other; Anders Hagfeldt (Author) Other; Michael Grätzel (Author) Other; Matthew T. Mayer (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Advanced Energy Materials

Vol. 5 No. 24

ISSN: 1614-6832

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 55 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 1 Citation

INSPEC

Scientific classification

CORDIS: Technological sciences > Engineering > Chemical engineering

FOS: Engineering and technology > Chemical engineering

Associated Projects

PECDEMO - Photoelectrochemical Demonstrator Device for Solar Hydrogen Generation

BI-DSC - Building Integrated Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00J-ZKM

DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201501537

Abstract (EN): Photoelectrochemical water splitting represents an attractive method of capturing and storing the immense energy of sunlight in the form of hydrogen, a clean chemical fuel. Given the large energetic demand of water electrolysis, and the defined spectrum of photons available from incident sunlight, a two absorber tandem device is required to achieve high efficiencies. The two absorbers should beofdifferentandcomplementary bandgaps, connected in series to achieve the necessary voltage, and arranged in an optical stack configuration to maximize the utilization of sunlight.This latterrequirement demands atop device that is responsive to high-energy photons but also transparent to lower-energy photons, which pass through to illuminate the bottom absorber. Here, cuprous oxide (Cu2O) is employed as a top absorber component, and the factors influencing the balance between transparencyandefficiency towardoperationinatandem configurationare studied. Photocathodes based on Cu2O electrodeposited onto conducting glass substrates treated with thin, discontinuous layers of gold achieve reasonable sub-bandgap transmittance while retaining performances comparable to their opaque counterparts. This new high-performance transparent photo- cathode is demonstrated in tandem with a hybrid perovskite photovoltaic cell, resulting in a full device capable of standalone sunlight-driven water splitting.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 19