First-principles investigation of BiVO3 for thermochemical water splitting

Abstract

Thermochemical water splitting is a promising clean method of hydrogen production of high relevance in a society heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Using evolutionary methods and density functional theory, we predict the structure and electronic properties of BiVO3. We build on previous literature to develop a framework to evaluate the thermodynamics of thermochemical water splitting cycles for hydrogen production. We use these results to consider the feasibility of BiVO3 as a catalyst for thermochemical water splitting. We show that for BiVO3, both the thermal reduction and gas splitting reactions are thermodynamically favorable under typical temperature conditions. We predict that thermochemical water splitting cycles employing BiVO3 as a catalyst produce hydrogen yields comparable to those of commonly used catalysts.