Power-to-X: STREAMing Hydrogen from 3-Band Solar Cells boosted with Photonic Management

Descripción del proyecto

El siguiente paso en las tecnologías fotovoltaicas para el hidrógeno solar

Las tecnologías fotovoltaicas convencionales, aunque eficaces para aprovechar la energía solar, adolecen de una eficiencia limitada al convertir la luz solar en electricidad, además de carecer de capacidad de almacenamiento de energía. El equipo del proyecto X-STREAM, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, pretende revolucionar el despliegue de la energía sostenible con sistemas fotovoltaicos innovadores capaces de almacenar energía mediante su acoplamiento con la electroquímica. La investigación desarrollará una tecnología que aumentará notablemente la eficiencia de las células solares nanoestructuradas al convertir en electricidad una gama más amplia de luz solar. Además, utilizará células de flujo electroquímico para alimentar la electrólisis del agua y sintetizar hidrógeno combustible, apoyando así una economía del hidrógeno respetuosa con el medio ambiente. En última instancia, el equipo de X-STREAM aspira al despliegue industrial con prototipos personalizables.

Objetivo

X-STREAM will sprout a new era of sustainable power sources based in photovoltaic (PV) systems which are not bounded by fundamental limits that hamper the efficiency of conventional solar cells, and endowed with energy storage via a synergetic coupling with electrochemistry (EC). This will be achieved via an unprecedented energy-package integrating two disruptive advances:
1) Light management via quantum structuring amplified by photonic trapping, to create 3-band PV – a new trend that will be launched, realized with wide-bandgap nanostructured solar cells capable of pronouncedly converting photon energies below their bandgap, thus exploiting the broad solar spectral range. This will allow, for the first time, to increase the efficiency of single-junction PV towards a 50% theoretical maximum, which is close to the limiting efficiency of triple-junction cells but here is attained with a single-junction.
2) Smart combination between PV cells and EC flow cells, in compact PV-EC devices that deliver the energy in hydrogen (H2) fuel synthesized from water splitting, enabling close to 30% solar-to-H2 efficiency with high operation stability, by capitalizing on: a) high voltage per junction of the 3-band PV technology, which is favourable to drive the EC reactions; b) thermal coupling between PV and EC in single devices, which naturally provides heat management of both systems.
The targeted fuel is a highly convenient energy vector in view of the present European urgency for a resilient, competitive and environment-friendly H2 economy. All the project developments will be attractive for industrial deployment, since mostly Earth-abundant materials and scalable processes are applied, so that the PV-EC prototypes can be easily customized and scaled for different uses.
The expertise of the PI team and his network of collaborators in nanotechnology, multi-band PV, photonics for light-trapping and solar fuels via PV-EC, places him in the best position to realize X-STREAM goals.