Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting offers an elegant approach for solar energy conversion into hydrogen fuel. Large-scale hydrogen production requires stable and efficient photoelectrodes and scalable PEC cells that are fitted for safe and cost-effective operation. One of the greatest challenges is the collection of hydrogen gas from millions of PEC cells distributed in the solar field. In this work, a separate-cell PEC system with decoupled hydrogen and oxygen cells was designed for centralized hydrogen production, using 100 cm2 hematite (a-Fe2O3) photoanodes and nickel hydroxide (Ni(OH)2) / oxyhydroxide (NiOOH) electrodes as redox mediators. The operating conditions of the system components and their configuration were optimized for daily cycles, and ten 8.3 h cycles were carried out under solar simulated illumination without additional bias at an average short-circuit current of 55.2 mA. These results demonstrate successful operation of a decoupled PEC water splitting system with separate hydrogen and oxygen cells.
@article{arxiv.2009.03564,
title = {Decoupled photoelectrochemical water splitting system for centralized hydrogen production},
author = {Avigail Landman and Rawan Halabi and Paula Dias and Hen Dotan and Alexander Mehlmann and Gennady E. Shter and Manar Halabi and Omayer Naserladeen and Adélio Mendes and Gideon S. Grader and Avner Rothschild},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.03564},
year = {2020}
}