Yang Rui, Zheng Xiaozhong, Qin Minkai, Lin Binbin, Shi Xiaoyun, Wang Yong
Advanced Materials and Catalysis Group, State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization, Center of Chemistry for Frontier Technologies, Institute of Catalysis, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310028, P. R. China.
College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, P. R. China.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2022 Aug;9(22):e2201594. doi: 10.1002/advs.202201594. Epub 2022 May 22.
Recently, extensive research efforts have been devoted to drive electrocatalytic water-splitting for hydrogen generation by electricity or solar cells. However, electricity from power grid and the intermittent property of sunlight inevitably brings about environmental pollution and energy loss. Thus, a novelty energy system for simultaneous generating H from solar energy and overcoming the intermittence of sunlight is highly desirable. Herein, a self-powered energy system with solar energy as the sole input energy is successfully assembled by integrated Zn-air batteries with stable output voltage, solar cells, and water splitting electrolyzer to efficient H production. Specially, the Zn-air batteries are charged by the solar cell to store intermitted solar energy as electricity during light reaction. Under unassisted light reaction, the batteries could release electric energy to drive H production. Therefore, the aim for simultaneous generating H and eliminating the restrictions of intermittent sunlight are realized. The solar-to-hydrogen efficiency and solar-to-water splitting device efficiency of the self-powered energy system are up to 4.6% and 5.9%, respectively. This work provides the novel design systems for H production and the usage of renewable energy.
最近，人们投入了大量的研究精力来驱动电催化水分解，以通过电力或太阳能电池产生氢气。然而，来自电网的电力以及阳光的间歇性不可避免地带来了环境污染和能量损失。因此，非常需要一种新颖的能量系统，该系统既能从太阳能中同时产生氢气，又能克服阳光的间歇性。在此，通过将具有稳定输出电压的锌空气电池、太阳能电池和水分解电解槽集成在一起，成功组装了一种以太阳能作为唯一输入能量的自供电能量系统，以高效生产氢气。特别地，锌空气电池在光反应期间由太阳能电池充电，将间歇性的太阳能存储为电能。在无辅助光反应的情况下，电池可以释放电能以驱动氢气生产。因此，实现了同时产生氢气和消除阳光间歇性限制的目标。该自供电能量系统的太阳能到氢气效率和太阳能到水分解装置效率分别高达4.6%和5.9%。这项工作为氢气生产和可再生能源的利用提供了新颖的设计系统。
