Photoelectrochemical tagged posts

Researchers have developed a system that can transform plastic waste and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels and other valuable products – using just the energy from the Sun.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed the system, which can convert two waste streams into two chemical products at the same time – the first time this has been achieved in a solar-powered reactor.

The reactor converts the carbon dioxide (CO2) and plastics into different products that are useful in a range of industries...

Water reduction by a p-GaInP2 photoelectrode stabilized by an amorphous TiO2 coating and a molecular cobalt catalyst: Surface modification strategies for the p-GaInP2 photoelectrodes.

This work shows that molecular catalysts can be as highly active as the precious metal-based catalysts. NREL’s scientists took a different approach to the PEC process, which uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The process requires special semiconductors, the PEC materials and catalysts to split the water. Previous work used precious metals such as platinum, ruthenium and iridium as catalysts attached to the semiconductors. A large-scale commercial effort using those precious metals wouldn’t be cost-effective, however.

The use of cheaper molecular catalysts instead of precious metals has...