Photocatalytic Water-Splitting Enhancement by Sub-Bandgap Photon Harvesting

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Angelo MonguzziFrancesco Meinardi

Abstract

Upconversion is a photon-management process especially suited to water-splitting cells that exploit wide-bandgap photocatalysts. Currently, such catalysts cannot utilize 95% of the available solar photons. We demonstrate here that the energy-conversion yield for a standard photocatalytic water-splitting device can be enhanced under solar irradiance by using a low-power upconversion system that recovers part of the unutilized incident sub-bandgap photons. The upconverter is based on a sensitized triplet-triplet annihilation mechanism (sTTA-UC) obtained in a dye-doped elastomer and boosted by a fluorescent nanocrystal/polymer composite that allows for broadband light harvesting. The complementary and tailored optical properties of these materials enable efficient upconversion at subsolar irradiance, allowing the realization of the first prototype water-splitting cell assisted by solid-state upconversion. In our proof-of concept device the increase of the performance is 3.5%, which grows to 6.3% if concentrated sunlight (10 sun) is used. Our experiments show how the sTTA-UC materials can be successfully implemented in technologically relevant devices while matching the strict requirements of clean-energy production.

References

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Citations

Apr 4, 2018·Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics : PCCP·Jacopo PedriniFrancesco Meinardi
May 24, 2018·Dalton Transactions : an International Journal of Inorganic Chemistry·L LatteriniF Ortica
May 30, 2019·Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics : PCCP·Alessandra RonchiAngelo Monguzzi
Jul 13, 2019·Dalton Transactions : an International Journal of Inorganic Chemistry·Yaxiong WeiShilin Liu
Oct 7, 2019·Chemistry : a European Journal·Tianjun YuYi Li
Mar 4, 2021·Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics : PCCP·Yosuke KageshimaHiromasa Nishikiori
May 12, 2021·Journal of the American Chemical Society·Chen YeKarl Börjesson
Apr 2, 2019·ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces·Anna L HagstromJae-Hong Kim
Aug 15, 2019·The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters·Shan HeKaifeng Wu
May 28, 2019·Journal of the American Chemical Society·Chen YeKarl Börjesson
Sep 25, 2021·The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters·Guiwen LuoYi Li

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