PECDEMO: sunlight to hydrogen
Roel van de Krol, head of the HZB Institute for Solar Fuels, coordinates the global research project PECDEMO.Photo: P.Dera/HZB
Within just three years, research partners of the EU project PECDEMO are planning on developing a practical system capable of converting over eight percent of solar energy into hydrogen. This could prove a real breakthrough in terms of practical applicability. Roel van de Krol, head of the HZB Institute for Solar Fuels, coordinates this global research project.
The official start date is set for April. The research partners will have but three years to realize their self-defined goal – a feat that is both ambitious and tangible. Together, they plan on coming up with a material system capable of converting eight percent of irradiated solar energy into hydrogen. In addition, this material system should be able to cover an area of 50 square centimeters while maintaining stability for more than a thousand hours.
“Obviously we’re taking a real chance by so explicitly defining such a specific goal,” says Prof. Dr. Roel van de Krol, the EU project’s coordinator. “But given the rapid progress we’ve made over the past five years, we’re confident we can do it. The larger area is meant to demonstrate that these types of systems don’t just work only in the lab but that they can also be upscaled to hold relevance for real-world applications.” For smaller areas, the partners are even planning on upping efficiency to ten percent.
For the PECDEMO project, van de Krol has successfully secured the talents of several renowned partners: PVcomB and DLR, Michael Graetzel’s team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, as well as the University of Portugal. Partners from industry include EVONIK Industries and Solaronix SA. In all, PECDEMO has been granted funding totaling 1,83 million Euros for a three year period, of which the HZB will be receiving 440,000 Euros.
- Green hydrogen with PEC electrolysers: New insights into transport processesOne method of storing solar energy is to use PEC electrolysers to produce hydrogen. However, scaling up this technology remains challenging. Now, a team at the HZB Institute for Solar Fuels has used 2D fluorescence imaging and particle velocimetry to observe the movement of ions and dissolved gases within the electrolyte during electrolysis. These new insights may prove useful in the development of larger PEC electrolysers.
- New contact material boosts the efficiency of perovskite solar cellsA newly developed material for the electron contact improves the efficiency of single perovskite solar cells and perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells. The new material is based on a carborane molecule. It offers several advantages over the standard material C60, as shown by the study led by Steve Albrecht’s team. The new material has since been patented and is already commercially available.
- BESSY II: New sample environment allows glimpse into thermocatalytic processesA novel measurement cell allows, for the first time, soft and hard X-ray investigations under high pressures of up to 20 bar and temperatures of up to 400°C. This provides new insights into thermocatalytic processes, such as the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis for producing synthetic fuels. The development of the measurement cell is considered a significant achievement within the Care-O-Sene project.