Alternatives to Water Photooxidation for Photoelectrochemical Solar Energy Conversion and Green H ₂ Production

Photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical conversion of solar energy.

The Sun provides approximately 100,000 terawatts to the Earth which is about 10000 times more than the present rate of the world's present energy consumption. Photovoltaic cells are being increasingly used to tap into this huge resource and will play a key role in future sustainable energy systems. So far, solid-state junction devices, usually made of silicon, crystalline or amorphous, and prof...

Design of semiconductor photoelectrochemical systems for solar energy conversion

Semiconductor-Based Photocatalytic, Photoelectrochemical, and Photovoltaic Solar-Energy Conversion

Semiconductor-based photocatalytic, photoelectrochemical, and photovoltaic solar-energy conversion has been considered very promising to address the energy and environmental challenges. At the heart of the technology is the lack of suitable semiconductor materials and efficient systems that can perform the solar-energy conversion efficiently and inexpensively. Much work needs to be done in this...

Photoelectrochemical Solar Energy Storage Cells

Although society’s electrical needs are largely continuous, clouds and darkness dictate that photovoltaic solar cells have an intermittent output. A photoelectrochemical solar cell (PEC) can generate not only electrical but also electrochemical energy and provide the basis for a system with an energy-storage component (PECS). Sufficientlyž energetic inQ1 solation incident on semiconductors can ...

Photoelectrochemical complexes for solar energy conversion that chemically and autonomously regenerate

Naturally occurring photosynthetic systems use elaborate pathways of self-repair to limit the impact of photo-damage. Here, we demonstrate a complex consisting of two recombinant proteins, phospholipids and a carbon nanotube that mimics this process. The components self-assemble into a configuration in which an array of lipid bilayers aggregate on the surface of the carbon nanotube, creating a ...