Synergizing Photo-Thermal H2 and Photovoltaics into a Concentrated Sunlight Use
Sanli Tang, Xueli Xing, Wei Yu, Jie Sun, Yimin Xuan, Lu Wang, Yangfan Xu, Hui Hong, Hongguang Jin
Abstract
in water/methanol serves as a spectrum selector, absorbing ultraviolet-visible and infrared energy for rapid photo-thermochemical hydrogen production. The transmitted visible and near-infrared energy fits the photovoltaic bandgap and retains the high efficiency of a commercial photovoltaic cell under different solar concentration values. The experimental design achieved an overall efficiency of 4.2% under 12 suns solar concentration. Furthermore, the results demonstrated a reduced energy loss in full-spectrum energy conversion into hydrogen and electricity. Such simple integration of photo-thermochemical hydrogen and photovoltaics would create a pathway toward cascading use of sunlight energy.