• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Thursday, March 4, 2021
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

Photocatalytic reaction in the shadow

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
January 25, 2021
in Chemistry
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: @Science China Press

Solar-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an attractive approach to convert solar energy into chemical energy. Among many photoelectrode materials, crystalline silicon (c-Si) has drawn considerable attention because of its earth abundance, narrow bandgap, and suitable band edge position for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, c-Si suffers from low photovoltage generated from the solid-liquid junction.

Various strategies, such as the construction of p-n homojunctions, metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) junctions and p-n heterojunctions, have been adopted to obtain high photovoltage. The MIS junctions have been the focus of attention in PEC water splitting due to their simple fabrication and the potential to achieve higher efficiencies than p-n junctions. However, there are very limited Si-based MIS photocathodes reported with efficiency exceeding 5%, much lower than that of p-n junction photocathode (10%).

One of the major challenges of p-Si MIS photocathodes for higher efficiency is the parasitic light absorption from HER catalysts such as Pt, Ni-Mo, etc. Traditional MIS photocathodes are fabricated from p-Si, where the photogenerated minority carriers (electrons) drive the reduction reaction at the front surface. This could be translated into the fact that the catalyst must be placed at the same side of MIS junction. Thus, the parasitic light absorption from catalysts will severely limit the photocurrent density. The metal layers in MIS junction also cause optical loss. Another limiting factor is the lack of low work function metals to form a large band offset with p-Si in MIS junction, resulting in a low photovoltage.

In a research article published in National Science Review, scientists at Tianjin University present a unique illumination-reaction decoupled MIS photocathode fabricated from n-Si, which surmounts the challenges that seriously impede the development of p-Si MIS photocathode.

Different from previous works that employ minority carriers to drive the surface reduction reaction, the majority carriers (electrons) of n-Si MIS photocathode are used in this work. Upon this simple, unconventional yet effective modification, the MIS junction and catalyst can be placed on the opposite sides of n-Si, which avoids the light-shielding problem of catalyst.

Moreover, this MIS photocathode constructed from n-Si addresses the drawback of lacking metallic materials with suitable work function to generate a large band offset for p-Si MIS photocathode. By using indium tin oxide (ITO) with a high transmittance as the high work function metallic material for n-Si MIS photocathode, the trade-off between metal coverage and light absorption confronted by high work function metals is further eliminated.

As a result, this illumination-reaction decoupled n-Si MIS photocathode exhibits a light absorption higher than 90%, a photovoltage up to 570 mV, and a recorded efficiency of 10.3%, exceeding traditional p-Si MIS photocathodes.

This facile strategy exhibits a potential to inspire the rational design of solar powered photoelectrochemical systems that use catalysts with poor light transmittance, a step forward towards future large-scale commercialization of solar water splitting.

###

This research is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin City, and the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities.

See the article:

Shujie Wang, Tuo Wang, Bin Liu, Huimin Li, Shijia Feng and Jinlong Gong

Spatial decoupling of light absorption and reaction sites in n-Si photocathodes for solar water splitting

Natl Sci Rev 2020; doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa293

https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa293

Media Contact
Jinlong Gong
[email protected]

Original Source

http://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa293

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa293

Tags: Chemistry/Physics/Materials Sciences
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

IMAGE

New microcomb could help discover exoplanets and detect diseases

March 4, 2021
IMAGE

Purdue Research Foundation partners with IdentifySensors Biologics for COVID-19 technology

March 4, 2021

Nature: new compound for male contraceptive pill

March 3, 2021

Conquering the timing jitters

March 3, 2021

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

POPULAR NEWS

  • IMAGE

    Terahertz accelerates beyond 5G towards 6G

    665 shares
    Share 266 Tweet 166
  • People living with HIV face premature heart disease and barriers to care

    83 shares
    Share 33 Tweet 21
  • Global analysis suggests COVID-19 is seasonal

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10
  • HIV: an innovative therapeutic breakthrough to optimize the immune system

    36 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Cell BiologyTechnology/Engineering/Computer SciencePublic HealthEcology/EnvironmentInfectious/Emerging DiseasescancerBiologyMedicine/HealthClimate ChangeGeneticsMaterialsChemistry/Physics/Materials Sciences

Recent Posts

  • Research contributes to understanding of hypersonic flow
  • New microcomb could help discover exoplanets and detect diseases
  • Purdue Research Foundation partners with IdentifySensors Biologics for COVID-19 technology
  • Air pollution fell sharply during lockdown
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In