Development and Scale-up of Photoelectrochemical Reactors for Hydrogen Production

该项目的挑战是设计，开发和测试一个可扩展的PEC系统，以证明商业用途的概念的可行性。通过Hankin和Kafizas的研究小组的合作努力，开发了一种带有连接PV的原型PEC反应堆，为反应堆提供外部偏压。作为她的MRes项目的一部分，Yuqi Chen开发了基于WO 3/BiVO 4异质结的光阳极，用于太阳能制氢。这些都是使用由Kafizas和Hankin小组开发的反应堆原型进行测试的，该原型由格兰瑟姆研究所和能源期货实验室联合授予。然而，这个现有的反应堆有几个技术问题必须在这个博士项目中克服。例如，在实验过程中实现的太阳能到氢气的转化效率明显低于该项目的目标，这有各种潜在的原因，这将需要优化。这些问题包括氟掺杂氧化锡（FTO）基材的导电性差，特别是在测试的较大规模样品中，以及使用化学气相沉积（CVD）的涂层均匀性。PEC反应堆原型中的问题随着规模的扩大而特别普遍，所以我必须把它作为我的首要任务来尝试和克服这些问题。尽管如此，MRes项目能够证明在FTO玻璃上低成本CVD制造光阳极的前景，这将在我的博士学位期间继续研究和优化。需要进一步工作的其他改进包括需要最终开发不需要来自PV的外部偏压的PEC反应器。发现通过来自光阳极的光生电极产生的能量不足以驱动电解反应，因此需要对反应器配置和材料进行更多的开发和优化以开发没有外部PV的PEC反应器。

The challenge of this project is to design, develop and test a scalable PEC system in order to demonstrate the viability of the concept for commercial use. A prototype PEC reactor with a connected PV to provide external bias to the reactor has been developed through collaborative efforts by the Hankin and Kafizas' research groups. As part of her MRes project, Yuqi Chen developed photoanodes based on WO3/BiVO4 heterojunctions with co-catalysts for solar generation of hydrogen. These were tested using a reactor prototype developed by the Kafizas and Hankin groups on the internal Pump Priming Fund, awarded jointly by the Grantham Institute and Energy Futures Lab. However, there were several technical issues with this existing reactor which must be overcome during this PhD project. For example, the solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency achieved during experiments was significantly lower than the target for the project and there are various potential causes for this, which will require optimisation. These include poor conductivity of the fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate, especially in the larger scale samples that were tested and uniformity of the coating using chemical vapour deposition (CVD). The issues in the PEC reactor prototype were especially prevalent with scale up, so I will have to make it my first priority to try and overcome these. Nevertheless, the MRes project was able to demonstrate the promise of low cost CVD fabrication of photoanodes on FTO glass and this will continue to be investigated and optimised during my PhD. Other improvements which require further work include the need to ultimately develop a PEC reactor which does not require an external bias from a PV. It was found that there was insufficient energy produced through photogenerated electrodes from the photoanode to drive the electrolysis reaction, so more development and optimisation of the reactor configuration and materials will be required to develop a PEC reactor without an external PV.