NSF/DOE Solar Hydrogen Fuel: New metal oxides for efficient hydrogen production via solar water splitting

NSF/DOE 太阳能氢燃料：通过太阳能水分解高效生产氢气的新型金属氧化物

• 批准号: 1433401
• 负责人: Yanfa Yan
• 金额: $ 74.83万
• 依托单位: University of Toledo
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1433401&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; DOE; Solar; Hydrogen; Fuel

The majority of the 15 terawatts (1012 W) of new power needed across the globe by 2050 must come from CO2 -free sources. Hydrogen production via solar water splitting is considered one of the top choices to meet this need, because hydrogen produced via solar water splitting provides not only renewable and clean, but also storable energy. An award is being made to Profs. Yanfa Yan, Xunming Deng, and Wanjian Yin at the University of Toledo to develop the concepts and processes necessary to realize new metal oxides with the potential for producing low-cost, non-toxic, earth-abundant, and high efficiency photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting systems by closely integrating theoretical design, dedicated synthesis, device fabrication, and advanced characterization. These new design principles will fundamentally change the approach to discovery of new materials for PEC water splitting devices. It will avoid the usual ?trial-and-error? process and significantly speed up the process of developing new materials. This project offers training of postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students to provide young scientists for future renewable energy research. The PIs will use the "Girlsin Science" workshop at The University of Toledo, provide "Summer ResearchOpportunities" to local high school students, engage in the Research in Science and Engineering program partnering with Woodward High School in Toledo, and will provide a technology pipeline for Ohio?s Wright Center for PVIC, while PVIC provides industrial connections for the PIs and their students. The overarching goal of this project is to design, synthesize, and validate new metal oxides that will not only have narrow band gaps and high optical absorptions, but also will meet other criteria for efficient photoelectrodes such as long carrier diffusion lengths, low non-radiative recombination, appropriate electrical conductivity, and high quantum yield. The PIs plan to propose and validate design principles at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels that will facilitate the design of new metal oxides that meet all the criteria for highly efficient photoelectrodes. Milestones will yield the following impacts: (1) A fundamental set of principles will be developed and validated for designing novel metal oxides with properties optimized for solar hydrogen production; (2) Novel bulk and thin-film methods will be developed for synthesizing the targeted metal oxides in single-phase form and with appropriate grain/film structure to enable validation of the technologies in functioning PEC water splitting devices; (3) New metal oxides capable for efficient and stable PEC water splitting and which are low-cost and non-toxic will be developed; (4) Overall PEC water splitting systems will be fabricated to evaluate the ultimate performance of the new metal oxides and will be disseminated to the scientific community; (5) The fundamental properties of the new oxides, junctions, interfaces, and devices will be characterized and understood to provide critical feedback for goals 1-3 and to further validate the design criteria.

到2050年，全球所需的15个新电力（1012 W）中的大多数必须来自无二氧化碳的来源。 通过太阳能分裂产生氢是满足这种需求的最佳选择之一，因为通过太阳能水分割产生的氢不仅可以可再生和清洁，而且还提供了可稳定的能量。向教授颁发了奖励。托莱多大学的Yanfa Yan，Xunming Deng和Wanjian Yin开发了实现新的金属氧化物所必需的概念和过程，具有产生低成本，无毒，含有地球的含量和高效的光电化学（PEC）水分拆卸系统，通过对理论上的设计，专门的设计，设备制造，制造，并构成，并构造了制造，并制造了制造，并制造了涂抹系统。这些新的设计原则将从根本上改变发现用于PEC水分拆分设备的新材料的方法。它会避免通常的反复试验吗？过程并大大加快开发新材料的过程。该项目提供了对博士后，研究生和本科生的培训，为未来的可再生能源研究提供年轻科学家。 PIS将在托莱多大学使用“女子科学”研讨会，为当地的高中生提供“夏季研究”，从事与托莱多的伍德沃德高中合作的科学和工程计划研究，并将为俄亥俄州的PVIC提供技术管道，而PVIC为PVIC提供了工业连接，为PVIC提供了PIS和他们的学生和他们的学生。 该项目的总体目标是设计，合成和验证新的金属氧化物，这些氧化物不仅具有狭窄的带隙和高光吸收，而且还将符合其他标准，以实现有效的光电剥离，例如长载流子扩散长度，低的非放射性重组，适当的电导率，适当的电导率和高量子产量。 PIS计划在电子，原子和分子水平上提出和验证设计原理，以促进符合所有标准的新金属氧化物的设计。里程碑将产生以下影响：（1）将开发和验证一组基本原理，以设计具有针对太阳能生产的特性的新型金属氧化物设计； （2）将开发出新型的体积和薄膜方法，用于以单相形式和适当的晶粒/膜结构合成目标金属氧化物，以验证在功能正常的PEC水分分裂设备方面的技术； （3）将开发出有效且稳定的PEC水分且低成本和无毒的新金属氧化物； （4）将制造总体PEC水分分割系统来评估新金属氧化物的最终性能，并将其传播到科学界； （5）将对新氧化物，连接，接口和设备的基本特性进行表征和理解，以提供目标1-3的关键反馈，并进一步验证设计标准。