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Title:
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Prestatiemetingen aan een foto-elektrochemische reactor
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Author(s):
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Published by:
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Publication date:
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ECN
Energy Efficiency in Industry
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1-2-2001
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ECN report number:
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Document type:
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ECN-I--01-004
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Other
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Number of pages:
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Full text:
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27
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Download PDF
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Abstract:
Results of a project aimed at proofing the technical possibility ofdirectly splitting water with a photo-electrochemical reactor (PEC-reactor)
are presented. The PEC-reactor under study consists of a combination of a
photovoltaic cell based on TiO2 and an electrochemical cell within one
device. Proofing the working principle is seen as the first important step in
the development of the PEC-reactor. Improving efficiency, decreasing costs,
extending lifetime, etc., are steps which follow the 'proof-of-principle'. A
PEC-reactor is constructed based on a photoanode made of titanium coated with
a pure TiO2-layer as a photocatalyst and an electrocathode made of carbon
cloth with platinum as an electrocatalyst. The two electrodes are connected
to and separated by a proton conductor Nafion. Water is fed to the photoanode
which under illumination of an artificial sun results in splitting of water
in oxygen and protons. The protons diffuse through the Nafion layer and
recombine to hydrogen at the electrocathode. Measurements were carried out on
the photocurrent and the production of oxygen. Using a light intensity of
1000 W/m2, a photocurrent of 0.08 mA/cm2 has been measured. The resulting
oxygen production is 0.032 /h.m2 . Applying a bias of 1.5 Volt to the
PEC-reactor increases the photocurrent and oxygen production to 0.17 mA/cm2
and 0.052 l/h.m2 respectively. The unbiased results correspond to an
Incident Photon to Current Efficiency (IPCE) of 0.11% based on photocurrent
and a cell efficiency of 0.02% based on oxygen production. The conclusion of
this work is that it is indeed possible to directly split water in a
photo-electrochemical reactor using sunlight. The efficiency of the device
however is quite low and should be improved significantly in further
development phases. 2 refs.
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