Journal article
Electrolyte-assisted polarization leading to enhanced charge separation and solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of seawater splitting
- Abstract:
- Photocatalytic splitting of seawater for hydrogen evolution has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. However, the poor energy conversion efficiency and stability of photocatalysts in a salty environment have greatly hindered further applications of this technology. Moreover, the effects of electrolytes in seawater remain controversial. Here we present electrolyte-assisted charge polarization over an N-doped TiO2 photocatalyst, which demonstrates the stoichiometric evolution of H2 and O2 from the thermo-assisted photocatalytic splitting of seawater. Our extensive characterizations and computational studies show that ionic species in seawater can selectively adsorb on photo-polarized facets of the opposite charge, which can prolong the charge-carrier lifetime by a factor of five, leading to an overall energy conversion efficiency of 15.9 ± 0.4% at 270 °C. Using a light-concentrated furnace, a steady hydrogen evolution rate of 40 mmol g−1 h−1 is demonstrated, which is of the same order of magnitude as laboratory-scale electrolysers.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 2.9MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41929-023-01069-1
Authors
+ Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0439y7842
- Grant:
- EP/K040375/1
- EP/T028637/1
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature Catalysis More from this journal
- Volume:
- 7
- Issue:
- 1
- Pages:
- 77-88
- Publication date:
- 2024-01-04
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-10-23
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2520-1158
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1599012
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1599012
- Deposit date:
-
2024-12-13
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Li et al
- Copyright date:
- 2024
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2024. The article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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