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Published October 2014 | Published
Journal Article Open

Efficient Water-Splitting Device Based on a Bismuth Vanadate Photoanode and Thin-Film Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

A hybrid photovoltaic/photoelectrochemical (PV/PEC) water-splitting device with a benchmark solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 5.2 % under simulated air mass (AM) 1.5 illumination is reported. This cell consists of a gradient-doped tungsten–bismuth vanadate (W:BiVO_4) photoanode and a thin-film silicon solar cell. The improvement with respect to an earlier cell that also used gradient-doped W:BiVO4 has been achieved by simultaneously introducing a textured substrate to enhance light trapping in the BiVO4 photoanode and further optimization of the W gradient doping profile in the photoanode. Various PV cells have been studied in combination with this BiVO_4 photoanode, such as an amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) single junction, an a-Si:H/a-Si:H double junction, and an a-Si:H/nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) micromorph junction. The highest conversion efficiency, which is also the record efficiency for metal oxide based water-splitting devices, is reached for a tandem system consisting of the optimized W:BiVO_4 photoanode and the micromorph (a-Si:H/nc-Si:H) cell. This record efficiency is attributed to the increased performance of the BiVO_4 photoanode, which is the limiting factor in this hybrid PEC/PV device, as well as better spectral matching between BiVO_4 and the nc-Si:H cell.

Additional Information

© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. Received: May 23, 2014; Revised: June 19, 2014. Financial support from the VIDI project of A.H.M.S. granted by the NWO-STW and European Commission's Framework Project 7 (NanoPEC, Project 227179) are gratefully acknowledged. R.L., Z.H., and H.-J.L. are supported by the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, a DOE Energy Innovation Hub, supported through the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Award Number DE-SC0004993.

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August 22, 2023
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