Abstract
A novel photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell design is proposed and investigated for H2 production with gaseous reactants. The core of the cell is a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) that consists of a TiO2 photoanode of nanotube arrays, a Pt/C counter and reference electrodes and a polymeric electrolyte membrane (PEM) with proton conductivity, which serves both as compact reactor for water splitting and as gas separator. The design was inspired by PEM electrolysis technology and modified appropriately for allowing illumination and it is also equipped with a third compartment which enables the use of a hydrogen reference electrode.Photoanodes of titania nanotube arrays, TNTAs, were developed, for the first time, on a Ti-web of microfiber substrates, by electrochemical anodization. The performance of TNTAs/Ti-web photoanodes were evaluated in both gaseous and liquid reactants. Due to the presence of reliable reference electrode in gas phase direct comparison of the results was possible. Gas phase operation with He or Air as carrier gases and only 2.5% of water content exhibits very promising photoefficiency in comparison with conventional PEC cells.
Highlights
Renewable energy sources are highly desirable in this era of dwindling petroleum reserves and increasing environmental concerns
This design is based on a the fabrication of titania nanotubes arrays (TNTAs) photoanode obtained by electrochemical anodization of a titanium porous substrate
These novel photoanodes were first evaluated for water splitting and ethanol reforming in conventional PEC cells with liquid electrolytes and in our novel polymeric electrolyte membrane (PEM)-PEC cell with gaseous reactants
Summary
Renewable energy sources are highly desirable in this era of dwindling petroleum reserves and increasing environmental concerns. The use of solid-state electrolytes in conjunction with gaseous reactants have a series of advantages over liquid-phase reactors such as operation at elevated temperatures and pressures (for improved kinetics), direct production of compressed H2 and hindering of gas bubbles formation which can impede catalytic reactions [3,4]. The latter is very important especially for space applications where bubble formation leads to more severe performance degradation due to microgravity environment [6]. Our ultimate goal is to load those TNTAs with visible light sensitive photocatalysts and to examine the effect of nanostructuring on the photoelectrode performance
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