For decades, researchers around the world have searched for ways to use
solar power to generate the key reaction for producing hydrogen as a clean
energy source — splitting water molecules to form hydrogen and oxygen.
However, such efforts have mostly failed because doing it well was too
costly, and trying to do it at a low cost led to poor performance.
Now, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have found a
low-cost way to solve one half of the equation, using sunlight to
efficiently split off oxygen molecules from water. The finding, published
recently in Nature Communications, represents a step forward toward greater
adoption of hydrogen as a key part of our energy infrastructure.
As early as the 1970s, researchers were investigating the possibility of
using solar energy to generate hydrogen. But the inability to find materials
with the combination of properties needed for a device that can perform the
key chemical reactions efficiently has kept it from becoming a mainstream
method.
“You need materials that are good at absorbing sunlight and, at the same
time, don’t degrade while the water-splitting reactions take place,” said
Edward Yu, a professor in the Cockrell School’s Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering. “It turns out materials that are good at absorbing
sunlight tend to be unstable under the conditions required for the
water-splitting reaction, while the materials that are stable tend to be
poor absorbers of sunlight. These conflicting requirements drive you toward
a seemingly inevitable tradeoff, but by combining multiple materials — one
that efficiently absorbs sunlight, such as silicon, and another that
provides good stability, such as silicon dioxide — into a single device,
this conflict can be resolved.”
However, this creates another challenge — the electrons and holes created by
absorption of sunlight in silicon must be able to move easily across the
silicon dioxide layer. This usually requires the silicon dioxide layer to be
no more than a few nanometers, which reduces its effectiveness in protecting
the silicon absorber from degradation.
The key to this breakthrough came through a method of creating electrically
conductive paths through a thick silicon dioxide layer that can be performed
at low cost and scaled to high manufacturing volumes. To get there, Yu and
his team used a technique first deployed in the manufacturing of
semiconductor electronic chips. By coating the silicon dioxide layer with a
thin film of aluminum and then heating the entire structure, arrays of
nanoscale “spikes” of aluminum that completely bridge the silicon dioxide
layer are formed. These can then easily be replaced by nickel or other
materials that help catalyze the water-splitting reactions.
When illuminated by sunlight, the devices can efficiently oxidize water to
form oxygen molecules while also generating hydrogen at a separate electrode
and exhibit outstanding stability under extended operation. Because the
techniques employed to create these devices are commonly used in
manufacturing of semiconductor electronics, they should be easy to scale for
mass production.
The team has filed a provisional patent application to commercialize the
technology.
Improving the way hydrogen is generated is key to its emergence as a viable
fuel source. Most hydrogen production today occurs through heating steam and
methane, but that relies heavily on fossil fuels and produces carbon
emissions.
There is a push toward “green hydrogen” which uses more environmentally
friendly methods to generate hydrogen. And simplifying the water-splitting
reaction is a key part of that effort.
Hydrogen has potential to become an important renewable resource with some
unique qualities. It already has a major role in significant industrial
processes, and it is starting to show up in the automotive industry. Fuel
cell batteries look promising in long-haul trucking, and hydrogen technology
could be a boon to energy storage, with the ability to store excess wind and
solar energy produced when conditions are ripe for them.
Going forward, the team will work to improve the efficiency of the oxygen
portion of water-splitting by increasing the reaction rate. The researchers’
next major challenge is then to move on to the other half of the equation.
“We were able to address the oxygen side of the reaction first, which is the
more challenging part, ” Yu said, “but you need to perform both the hydrogen
and oxygen evolution reactions to completely split the water molecules, so
that’s why our next step is to look at applying these ideas to make devices
for the hydrogen portion of the reaction.”
Reference:
Scalable, highly stable Si-based metal-insulator-semiconductor
photoanodes for water oxidation fabricated using thin-film reactions and
electrodeposition
by Soonil Lee, Li Ji, Alex C. De Palma and Edward T. Yu, 25 June 2021,
Nature Communications. DOI:
10.1038/s41467-021-24229-y