Materials and system engineering for photo-electrochemical production of high-value oxidation products

The last few decades have led to significant growth in photovoltaic industry as the lifetime and efficiencies of these devices continue to make breakthrough improvements. However, solar energy still contributes to less than 10% of our energy demand. Two of the biggest hindrances to its growth can be attributed to the material cost and its intermittency. In this thesis, I tried to address both of these challenges by developing novel, cost-competitive systems that can harvest sunlight efficiently and store the harvested energy as fuels and valuable chemicals for later use. The target fuel (hydrogen) can be readily compressed and stored to offset the intermittent nature of solar energy. The chemicals produced (chlorine and sodium hydroxide) can be sold to offset the overall system cost. Commercially available photovoltaic materials, as well as novel low-cost light absorbers, were developed and engineered for fuel and chemical production. The stability and efficiency of these materials for solar-to-fuel production were investigated. A technoeconomic analysis was also carried out to identify key technical and economic sensitivities of the system that could serve as a roadmap for future researchers in the field.