The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 24, 2022
Filed:
Jul. 16, 2018
U.s. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD (US);
Michael Wraback, Germantown, MD (US);
Anand V. Sampath, Montgomery Village, MD (US);
Paul Shen, Potomac, MD (US);
Vijay S. Parameshwaran, Greenbelt, MD (US);
The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
Disclosed is a semiconductor-liquid junction based photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell for the unassisted solar splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, the solar-driven reduction of COto higher-order hydrocarbons, and the solar-driven synthesis of NH. The disclosed system can employ a photocathode based upon wurtzite hexagonal semiconductors that can be tailored with proper band alignment for the redox potentials for water, COreduction, and NHproduction, and with bandgap energy for maximum solar absorption. The design maximizes the carrier collection efficiency by leveraging spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization in these materials systems to generate hot electrons within the photocathode. These electrons have sufficient excess energy, preserved at a designed energy capture region, to overcome the kinetic overpotential (surface chemistry limitation) required for the reactions to occur at a high rate.