Efficient Solar Water Splitting, Exemplified by RuO2-Catalyzed AlGaAs/Si Photoelectrolysis

• Published in: The journal of physical chemistry. B 2000-09, Vol.104 (38), p.8920-8924
• Main Authors: Licht, S, Wang, B, Mukerji, S, Soga, T, Umeno, M, Tributsch, H
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1520-6106; 1520-5207
• DOI: 10.1021/jp002083b

Contemporary models are shown to significantly underestimate the attainable efficiency of solar energy conversion to water splitting, and experimentally a cell containing illuminated AlGaAs/Si RuO2/Ptblack is demonstrated to evolve H2 and O2 at record solar driven water electrolysis efficiency. Under illumination, bipolar configured Al0.15Ga0.85As (E g = 1.6 eV) and Si (E g = 1.1 eV) semiconductors generate open circuit and maximum power photopotentials of 1.30 and 1.57 V, well suited to the water electrolysis thermodynamic potential:  H2O → H2 + 1/2O2; E°H 2 O = E O 2 − E H 2 ; E°H 2 O(25 °C) = 1.229 V. The E°H 2 O/photopotential matched semiconductors are combined with effective water electrolysis O2 or H2 electrocatalysts, RuO2 or Ptblack. The resultant solar photoelectrolysis cell drives sustained water splitting at 18.3% conversion efficiencies. Alternate dual band gap systems are calculated to be capable of attaining over 30% solar photoelectrolysis conversion efficiency.