HyperSolar, Inc. announced today that is has identified a low-cost aqueous process to produce artificial photosynthesis particles required for water splitting.
One of major challenges in solar-powered water splitting is the use of expensive high voltage solar cells. To address this challenge, the company’s research team at the University of Iowa (UOI) successfully fabricated a hydrogen production particle with a low cost high voltage solar cell.
Instead of using conventional and expensive vapour deposition processes to make the solar cell component, the team was able to use a water-based process where a silicon wafer was literally “dipped” into beakers of solutions containing appropriate chemistries to create a high voltage multi-junction solar cell.
Unlike conventional multi-junction solar cells that use expensive rare earth materials such as gallium and arsenic, this cell uses inexpensive earth abundant materials. The cell is then bonded to chemical catalysts using a proprietary encapsulation coating to form a self-contained hydrogen generator that can split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, using the power of the Sun.
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