Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Isotope Separation on Advanced Semiconductor-Electrocatalyst Systems

先进半导体电催化剂系统的光电化学氢同位素分离

• 批准号: 2742543
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Warwick
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2742543
• 关键词: Photoelectrochemical; Hydrogen; Isotope; Separation; Advanced

One of the greatest challenges of modern isotope separation technologies is to separate isotope mixtures at high purity, low costs and minimal energy input. The efficient separation of deuterium (2H2 or D2) and tritium (3H2 or T2) which are irreplaceable for various industrial and scientific applications creates an immense economic value. Current separation methods suffer from low separation efficiencies owing to the similar chemical properties of hydrogen isotopes and multiple, energy and cost-intensive separation steps. Electrolysis is one of the most effective processes for hydrogen isotope separation since the H/D and H/T separation factors (S) are determined by the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) kinetics at the electrode surface. Presently, highly efficient semiconductor-electrocatalyst systems are developed for the photoelectrochemical generation of hydrogen as a so-called 'solar fuel' which have yielded the hitherto highest solar-to-chemical conversion efficiencies and stabilities when combining surface modified photovoltaic tandem absorbers with high activity electrocatalysts. In this project, we investigate these photoelectrode systems for photoelectrochemical hydrogen isotope separation in order to achieve two main goals. We aim at using the different electrochemical properties of isotopic aqueous electrolyte solutions to advance the understanding of HER kinetics at the electrode-electrolyte interface to draw mechanistic conclusions on the dependence of HER on temperature, pH, electrolyte composition and applied potential (i) and secondly, to lay the scientific foundations for the development of an efficient technologically relevant process for photoelectrochemical hydrogen isotope separation utilising solar energy as the main energy source (ii).

现代同位素分离技术的最大挑战之一是以高纯度、低成本和最小能量输入分离同位素混合物。氘（2 H2或D2）和氚（3 H2或T2）的有效分离对于各种工业和科学应用是不可替代的，创造了巨大的经济价值。目前的分离方法由于氢同位素的相似化学性质和多个能量和成本密集的分离步骤而遭受低分离效率。电解是氢同位素分离最有效的方法之一，因为H/D和H/T分离因子（S）由电极表面的析氢反应（HER）动力学决定。目前，开发了用于光电化学产生氢作为所谓的“太阳能燃料”的高效的光电转换器-电催化剂系统，当将表面改性的光伏串联吸收剂与高活性电催化剂组合时，其产生了迄今为止最高的太阳能-化学转化效率和稳定性。在这个项目中，我们研究这些光电极系统的光电化学氢同位素分离，以实现两个主要目标。我们的目的是使用同位素电解质水溶液的不同电化学性质来促进对电极-电解质界面处HER动力学的理解，以得出HER对温度、pH、电解质组成和施加电势的依赖性的机械结论（i），其次，为开发高效的光电化学氢同位素分离技术奠定科学基础利用太阳能作为主要能源（ii）。