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| Hauptseite > Publikationsdatenbank > Battery storage to keep the artificial leaf running during the night : Implications and impact of direct battery coupling to solar electrolysers |
| Hauptseite > Publikationsdatenbank > Battery storage to keep the artificial leaf running during the night : Implications and impact of direct battery coupling to solar electrolysers |
| Contribution to a conference proceedings | FZJ-2022-05036 |
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2021
Abstract: Solar based hydrogen power is promising as a renewable fuel that can be generated anywhere there is sunshine and water. Many attempts have been made to integrate a water electrolyser and solar cell into one seamless package (a so-called artificial leaf) to take advantage of the cooling provided by the water to the solar cell, reduced losses from the lack of wiring and the increased portability afforded by an integrated unit 1. However, in literature, much less attention is payed to the need for a minimum current across the electrolyser under insufficient illumination to prevent excessive catalyst degradation and dissolution2. Attaching an appropriately sized, voltage matched battery to an artificial leaf could address this need and in theory could also increase efficiency of the setup across one diurnal cycle. We experimentally show that this can be achieved without any power electronics and, as is theorized, the presence of the battery also has a positive effect on the operation of the electrolyser and improves solar-to-hydrogen efficiency by reducing the current density across the electrolyser. A 7 cell silicon heterojunction module , two bifunctional NiFeMo electrolysers in series and a commercial Li-ion NMC battery were selected to provide the same amount of solar output power despite different working voltages and tested in a series of simulated diurnal cycles. The increased average solar to hydrogen efficiency per cycle (11.4% vs 10.5% without the battery) is analyzed and discussed with implications for future integrated artificial leaf design and implementation. 1. M. Lee, B. Turan, J.-P. Becker, K. Welter, B. Klingebiel, E. Neumann, Y. J. Sohn, T. Merdzhanova, T. Kirchartz, F. Finger, U. Rau and S. Haas, Advanced Sustainable Systems, 2020, 4, 2000070. 2. A. Weiß, A. Siebel, M. Bernt, T. H. Shen, V. Tileli and H. A. Gasteiger, Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2019, 166, F487-F497.
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