The increasing energy demands and environmental concerns expedite the exploration of renewable energy sources. Because of the abundant and sustainable natures, renewable solar energy provides a promising alternative to conventional non-renewable sources of energy. Conversion of solar energy to electricity using solar cells or green fuels (hydrogen) via water splitting has attracted a lot of attention. The aim of this master's dissertation is to investigate novel photoanodes made of magnesium diboride (MgB2)/transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) composites with an attempt to enhance photocatalytic water splitting in a photo-electrochemical cell for green hydrogen production. We employed MgB as the main photocatalyst and the TMDs as a black body counterpart and co-catalyst with an idea to achieve enhancements in both light harvesting and photon to current conversion efficiency. We selected 0.5M solution NaCl as the cell electrolyte that can serve as the surrogate of natural seawater (one of the most abundant resources on the Earth). We found that our hybrid photoanodes demonstrate excellent performance in photocatalytic seawater-splitting process as compared to the traditional photocatalyst semiconductors. Our hybrid photocatalyst achieved ~ 3% overall photon to current conversion efficiency, which is much higher than the best result given by metal oxides about 1%.
Date of Award | 31 Dec 2024 |
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Original language | English |
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Awarding Institution | - The University of Manchester
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Supervisor | Alexander Grigorenko (Supervisor) & Vasyl Kravets (Supervisor) |
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- MgB2
- Plasmonic Metal
- Water Splitting
Enhancing photocatalytic seawater splitting by plasmonic MgB2 coupled with TMDs nanostructures
Zhou, H. (Author). 31 Dec 2024
Student thesis: Master of Science by Research