Engineering of Artificial Photosynthesis Systems

Abstract:
Recent economic and environmental factors have propelled an interest towards the development of scalable technologies to increase the share of renewable sources into our energy portfolio. Artificial photosynthesis systems are a promising alternative as they can simultaneously capture and store solar energy in the form of a fuel. Systems based on photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells can take low energy density reactants such as water and/or carbon dioxide and transform them into energy dense hydrogen or carbon containing fuels via light-driven processes. Devices based on PEC cells need to incorporate cost-effective components that can perform the light-absorption, catalytic reactions, ion transport and product separation processes. All of these processes need to take place in parallel, imposing strong interactions and interdependence between all of the components of solar-fuels devices. Furthermore, these interactions require all of the components to operate stably under compatible conditions (i.e. electrolyte composition, pH, irradiation level, temperature). This presentation will focus on the development of integrated solar-fuels devices. Specifically, it will cover technoeconomic aspects leading to the design and implementation of practical solar hydrogen generators. These aspects will include the utilization of solar concentrators integrated and microfluidic water-splitting units so that sunlight can be converted directly into hydrogen fuel in a cost-effective way. The work presented here will provide a broad overview on the efforts of the SHINE-NanoTera project (shine.epfl.ch) which aims to implement system engineering approaches towards the development of deployable artificial photosynthesis systems.