Holmes-Gentle Isaac, Hellgardt Klaus
Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
Sci Rep. 2018 Aug 24;8(1):12807. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-30959-9.
Understanding the fundamental thermodynamic limits of photo-electrochemical (PEC) water splitting is of great scientific and practical importance. In this work, a 'detailed balance' type model of solar quantum energy converters and non-linear circuit analysis is used to calculate the thermodynamic limiting efficiency of various configurations of PEC design. This model is released as freely accessible open-source (GNU GPL v3) code written in MATLAB with a graphical user interface (GUI). The capabilities of the model are demonstrated by simulating selected permutations of PEC design and results are validated against previous literature. This tool will enable solar fuel researchers to easily compare experimental results to theoretical limits to assess its realised performance using the GUI. Furthermore, the code itself is intended to be extendable and so can be modified to include non-ideal losses such as the over-potential required or complex optical phenomena.
理解光电化学(PEC)水分解的基本热力学极限具有重大的科学和实际意义。在这项工作中,采用太阳能量子能量转换器的“详细平衡”型模型和非线性电路分析来计算PEC设计各种配置的热力学极限效率。该模型以用MATLAB编写的、带有图形用户界面(GUI)的免费开源(GNU GPL v3)代码形式发布。通过模拟PEC设计的选定排列来展示该模型的能力,并根据先前的文献对结果进行验证。此工具将使太阳能燃料研究人员能够使用GUI轻松地将实验结果与理论极限进行比较,以评估其实际性能。此外,代码本身旨在可扩展,因此可以修改以纳入诸如所需过电位或复杂光学现象等非理想损耗。