Tandem cells could enable hydrogen economy
A
Powdermatrix product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Dec 21, 2005
Tandem cells can convert light and water directly into hydrogen fuel by using microcrystalline semiconductor films that capture sunlight and generate hydrogen from photocatalytic water splitting.
Tandem cell technology, developed by SME Hydrogen Solar, can convert light and water directly into hydrogen fuel by using microcrystalline semiconductor films that capture sunlight and generate hydrogen from photocatalytic water splitting.
The tandem cell could revolutionise hydrogen supply routes for existing industrial markets and be an enabling technology for the emerging hydrogen energy economy.
Scaling-up the tandem cell technology requires improved conductivity of the glass substrates.
With the current process already using the highest conductivity, transparent substrate glass that is commercially available, an alternative was required.
A Spark award, granted to member companies of Powdermatrix to fund problem solving, proof-of-concept, technology demonstration and other development activities, allowed research to take place into the possibility of improving substrate conductivity before the spray pyrolysis process which deposits the active coating.
Experts at Ceram investigated two methods that have the potential to solve the problem.
One was the use of various conducting materials and the other was to attach a wire to the glass substrate using a metallic solder-braze paste that wets glass and uses a glass powder frit.
A successful result was achieved on the last of the three conducting materials.
The material has a low resistance, is well bonded to the glass substrate, is resistant to the alkali electrolyte and is compatible with the nano-particle metal oxide coatings.
Further work is needed to investigate the best way to apply this material, though results show that this method is very suited to the tandem cell application.
The conductivity produced offers benefits for production of scaled-up tandem cells with equivalent performance to those produced at the smaller laboratory scale.
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