Efficient Solar Water Splitting, Exemplified by RuO₂-Catalyzed AlGaAs/Si Photoelectrolysis

Abstract

Contemporary models are shown to significantly underestimate the attainable efficiency of solar energy conversion to water splitting, and experimentally a cell containing illuminated AlGaAs/Si RuO2/Ptblack is demonstrated to evolve H2 and O2 at record solar driven water electrolysis efficiency. Under illumination, bipolar configured Al0.15Ga0.85As (Eg = 1.6 eV) and Si (Eg = 1.1 eV) semiconductors generate open circuit and maximum power photopotentials of 1.30 and 1.57 V, well suited to the water electrolysis thermodynamic potential: H2O → H2 + 1/2O2; E°H2O = EO2 − EH2; E°H2O(25 °C) = 1.229 V. The E°H2O/photopotential matched semiconductors are combined with effective water electrolysis O2 or H2 electrocatalysts, RuO2 or Ptblack. The resultant solar photoelectrolysis cell drives sustained water splitting at 18.3% conversion efficiencies. Alternate dual band gap systems are calculated to be capable of attaining over 30% solar photoelectrolysis conversion efficiency.