Hydrogen peroxide photosynthesis from water and air using a scaled-up 1-m2 flow reactor
Xiaoshan Zheng, Rito Yanagi, Zhenhua Pan, Chong Zhou, Tian Liu, Baoliang Chen, Kenji Katayama, Shu Hu, Chiheng Chu
Abstract
Particulate photocatalysis (PC) has shown great potential in sustainable chemical synthesis. Until now, developing a scalable PC system remains a major challenge hurdling the practical application of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) photosynthesis. Here, we report a flexible hydrophobic photocatalyst sheet based on visible-light-responsive bismuth vanadate (BiVO 4 ) photocatalysts with (λ < 520 nm) to achieve flow-transport-dependent cascade photocatalytic H 2 O 2 production. Using dissolved oxygen from the air and deionized water or tap water, the flexible sheets showed solar-to-chemical conversion (STC) efficiency of 0.11%. These BiVO 4 photocatalyst sheets were arranged in a 4 × 4-panels array in a 1-m 2 flow-by reactor and achieved 1-month outdoor stability under diurnal solar cycles. We utilized this solar-produced H 2 O 2 solution for disinfection, achieving >99.9% inactivation of a coronavirus surrogate in 60 min. Techno-economic analysis (TEA) shows that at 2% STC efficiency, the cost becomes comparable to commercial approaches due to the elimination of transportation, storage, and deployment costs.