Clean hydrogen and power from impure water

This paper presents a new photoelectrochemical (PEC) H2 production system which is capable of providing clean energy and water, and multi-generation of H2, electricity, heat and industrial chemicals from a single clean, abundant and renewable source: sun. This novel system maximizes solar spectrum utilization and increases system efficiencies by generating more outputs from solar energy alone. The hybrid PEC-chloralkali system, coupled with PV/T (Photovoltaic Thermal), is capable of producing H2, Cl2, electricity, and heat simultaneously. Incoming solar light is split into high-energy photons (with wavelengths lower than 400 nm) and low-energy photons. The high-energy portion is used to generate photocurrent in the reactor, and the remaining part is sent to the PV/T. This PV/T supports the electricity needs of the system and also provides electricity output for the end user. Moreover, the heat recovered from PV/T is a system output. The findings suggest that this system is capable of producing H2 and Cl2 as well as heat and electricity with higher efficiencies than the reported PV electrolysis and PEC-based H2 production efficiencies in the literature.