Solar cell directly splits water fo...( Plants trees and algae do it. Even s...)

Plants trees and algae do it. Even some bacteria and moss do it, but scientists have had a difficult time developing methods to turn sunlight into useful fuel. Now, Penn State researchers have a proof-of-concept device that can split water and produce recoverable hydrogen.

"This is a proof-of-concept system that is very inefficient. But ultimately, catalytic systems with 10 to 15 percent solar conversion efficiency might be achievable," says Thomas E. Mallouk, the DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics. "If this could be realized, water photolysis would provide a clean source of hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight."

Although solar cells can now produce electricity from visible light at efficiencies of greater than 10 percent, solar hydrogen cells like those developed by Craig Grimes, professor of electrical engineering at Penn State have been limited by the poor spectral response of the semiconductors used. In principle, molecular light absorbers can use more of the visible spectrum in a process that is mimetic of natural photosynthesis. Photosynthesis uses chlorophyll and other dye molecules to absorb visible light.

So far, experiments with natural and synthetic dye molecules have produced either hydrogen or oxygen-using chemicals consumed in the process, but have not yet created an ongoing, continuous process. Those processes also generally would cost more than splitting water with electricity. One reason for the difficulty is that once produced, hydrogen and oxygen easily recombine. The catalysts that have been used to study the oxygen and hydrogen half-reactions are also good catalysts for the recombination reaction.

Mallouk and W. Justin Youngblood, postdoctoral fellow in chemistry, together with collaborators at Arizona State University, developed a catalyst system that, combined with a dye, can mimic the electron transfer and water oxidation processes that occur in plants during photosynthesis. They reported the resu
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