Description:
Manganese, Cobalt, and Nickel as Effective Additives for Hematite-Based Photoanodes
Princeton Docket # 12-2755
Photoelectrochemical cells (PECs) generate fuel from sunlight-driven electrochemical reactions. It is highly desirable to find cheap and effective means to generate hydrogen via water splitting reactions. Among the many potential candidates for photoanode materials for this process, hematite (a-Fe2O3, one of the main components of rust) stands out as being low-cost, abundant, non-toxic, and it has a nearly optimal band gap for solar energy absorption. Hematite photoanodes should be ideal materials to catalyze water splitting; however, large overpotentials and low light harvesting efficiencies severely limit their practical use.
Using first-principles quantum mechanics calculations, researchers at Princeton University have identified dopants that modify hematite¿s electronic structure to improve its electrocatalytic properties towards water splitting. Specifically, they found dopants that destabilize catalyst-poisoning reaction intermediates on the photoanodes, thereby reducing the required energy input and improving their efficiencies.
Application
Hematite-based photoanodes in PECs
Advantage
Lower Overpotential Requirement
The Inventor
Emily Ann Carter is Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering & Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. She is also the Founding Director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. Professor Carter's primary research lies along the interface of chemistry, materials science, applied physics, and applied mathematics. Much of her work focuses on predicting the behavior of materials, analyzing properties of materials on the atomic level and then using that information to inform models at higher length scales for a comprehensive view of materials behavior. She has received many honors for her work, including election to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (2009), the National Academy of Sciences (2008), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2008).
Intellectual Property status
Patent protection is pending.