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by summerstudent Oscar Moreno As a master’s student in chemistry, experiments are the basis of my research. The excitement of running an experiment for the first time and the challenge of trying to explain the results keeps me motivated. Nonetheless, in order to pursue things further, my investigation forced me to work during weekends and many times I found myself preparing reports in my room at midnight. I was not aware my acacemic life had come out of the laboratory and was encroaching on other aspects of my life until one of my advisors stopped me. After seeing me working on Saturdays without pausing, heRead More →

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In: Energymaterials, Summerstudents

Far-sighted hydrogen economy During one of the winter nights, while talking in the interior of Granite House, “well lighted with candles, well warmed with coal, after a good dinner”, the settlers of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island were discussing about the fact that the coal will be entirely consumed. After a roughly estimation, Cyrus Harding, an engineer of great capabilities, concluded that it would happen “for at least two hundred and fifty or three hundred years.” To everyone’s surprise, when he was asked what they will burn instead of coal, he said: “Water”. “Water” cried Pencroft, “water as a fuel for steamers and engines! water toRead More →

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In: Energymaterials, Students, Summerstudents

My summer research project is Optimizing Buried Junction Cubic and Orthorhombic SnS Photocathodes.  For many years my research group have been searching for semiconductors and solar absorber materials that are non-toxic, abundant, stable, which crystallize at low temperature and are fabricated at low cost, but also have favorable optical and electrical properties for solar energy conversion. Figure 1: π-SnS photocathodes a) before and b) after coating with a passivation and protection layer. When designing a system for solar water splitting it has been proposed that an idealized tandem device, consisting of two semiconductors with band gaps around 1.0 to 1.3 eV and 1.6 to 2.0Read More →

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In: International, Summerstudents

With that statement, I used to begin my day in the blue building of PVcomb… I had the chance to participate with the PV to Fuels Technology group in a project for developing a novel type of hydrogen electrolyzers. These electrolyzers are devices that can use the produced voltage from solar cells to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. Therefore, they can enable us to store the solar energy as a chemical fuel, H2; so that we can use it later whenever there is a demand for electricity regardless of the solar irradiance profile over the day. My work is all about simulating newRead More →

THE ROAD TO ARTIFICIAL PHOTOSYNTHESIS

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In: Energymaterials, International, Students, Summerstudents

As a summer student at the HZB, I am working at the Institute for Solar Fuels on Artificial Photosynthesis research. In the project, I am taking part in, we aim  to improve and characterize two materials, namely BaxMnyOz and MnxVyOz. By using Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD) as the synthesis method, our goal is to investigate the structure and photoelectrochemical properties of these materials by various methods and optimize them towards improving their solar-water-splitting efficiency. This project and research at the Institute for Solar Fuels is based on the search for new light absorbing materials, which can harness the sun’s radiation to produce clean energy from the most abundant resource on earth, water (H2O). This hasRead More →

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In: Energymaterials, Lightsources

Nanoparticles are tiny, really tiny. Only a fraction of a micrometer or some nanometers in size. And only some thousands of molecules strong,  their properties can differ dramatically from those of their larger cousins. Titaniumdioxide, a whitish powder, can form such nanoparticles. In water, these nanoparticles can act as catalysts, when excited with light. and facilitate water splitting or water remediation. However, what happens exactly when TiO2 and water get into contact and which impact this is having on the electronic structure of TiO2 remained in the dark: it is very tricky to probe nanoparticle–water interface experimentally and to observe changes. Soft X-rays at BESSYRead More →

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In: Summerstudents

SnWO4 thin film photoelectrodes for solar water splitting Solar water splitting offers a solution for solar energy storage problem, since the generated hydrogen can be stored as a renewable fuel. However, a suitable photoelectrode material for water oxidation reaction is still elusive. The reason for this is that the semiconducting materials have to meet the stringent requirements. For example, the elements of the electrode have to be earth-abundant and allow stability in aqueous solution. Furthermore, the photoelectrode has to absorb most of the visible spectrum of the sun to ensure a high solar-to-hydrogen efficiency. In this work, a new promising n-type semiconductor α-SnWO4 was examined.Read More →

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In: Summerstudents

Theoretical Characterization of Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Oxide Quantum Dots Materials capable of catalyzing water splitting reactions when irradiated by sunlight show considerable promise as a hydrogen fuel source. These photocatalysts are suitable for large scale hydrogen production, since the process requires only water,  solar energy and the catalyst itself. One such material is graphene oxide (GO) which is particularly interesting because its properties can be easily tuned to enhance its efficiency. In this project, we investigate how different functionalization patterns affect the photocatalytic activity of nitrogen-doped GO by calculating theoretical IR, UV and X-ray spectra for a number of suitable model systems (shown above). As theRead More →