美国密歇根大学教授Mi, Zetian团队开发出太阳能制氢效率超过9%的光催化裂解水。相关研究成果发表在2023年1月4日出版的国际知名学术期刊《自然》。

利用地球上最丰富的两种自然资源，太阳光和水生产氢燃料为碳中和提供了最有前景的途径之一。一些太阳能制氢方法，例如光电化学水裂解，通常需要腐蚀性电解质，限制了其性能稳定性和环境可持续性。或者，通过光催化水分解，可以直接从阳光和水中产生清洁的氢气。然而，光催化水分解的太阳能制氢（STH）效率仍然很低。

该文中，研究人员开发了一种策略，使用纯水、聚光太阳能和氮化铟镓光催化剂实现9.2%的高STH效率。该策略的成功源于通过在最佳反应温度（约70摄氏度）下操作促进正向氢-氧演化和抑制反向氢-氧复合的协同效应，这可以通过在阳光中收集先前浪费的红外光来直接实现。此外，这种依赖于温度的策略还导致从广泛可用的自来水和海水中获得约7%的STH效率，并且在具有257瓦自然太阳光容量的大规模光催化水分离系统中，STH效率为6.2%。

该研究提供了一种利用自然太阳能光和水高效生产氢燃料的实用方法，克服了太阳能制氢的效率瓶颈。

附：英文原文

Title: Solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of more than 9% in photocatalytic water splitting

Author: Zhou, Peng, Navid, Ishtiaque Ahmed, Ma, Yongjin, Xiao, Yixin, Wang, Ping, Ye, Zhengwei, Zhou, Baowen, Sun, Kai, Mi, Zetian

Issue&Volume: 2023-01-04

Abstract: Production of hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water, two of the most abundant natural resources on Earth, offers one of the most promising pathways for carbon neutrality1,2,3. Some solar hydrogen production approaches, for example, photoelectrochemical water splitting, often require corrosive electrolyte, limiting their performance stability and environmental sustainability1,3. Alternatively, clean hydrogen can be produced directly from sunlight and water by photocatalytic water splitting2,4,5. The solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency of photocatalytic water splitting, however, has remained very low. Here we have developed a strategy to achieve a high STH efficiency of 9.2per cent using pure water, concentrated solar light and an indium gallium nitride photocatalyst. The success of this strategy originates from the synergistic effects of promoting forward hydrogen–oxygen evolution and inhibiting the reverse hydrogen–oxygen recombination by operating at an optimal reaction temperature (about 70degrees Celsius), which can be directly achieved by harvesting the previously wasted infrared light in sunlight. Moreover, this temperature-dependent strategy also leads to an STH efficiency of about 7per cent from widely available tap water and sea water and an STH efficiency of 6.2per cent in a large-scale photocatalytic water-splitting system with a natural solar light capacity of 257watts. Our study offers a practical approach to produce hydrogen fuel efficiently from natural solar light and water, overcoming the efficiency bottleneck of solar hydrogen production.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05399-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05399-1