Nanostructured photoelectrochemical solar cell for nitrogen reduction using plasmon-enhanced black silicon

Muataz Ali, Fengling Zhou, Kun Chen, Christopher Kotzur, Changlong Xiao, Laure Bourgeois, Xinyi Zhang () and Douglas R. MacFarlane ()
Additional contact information
Muataz Ali: School of Chemistry, Monash University
Fengling Zhou: School of Chemistry, Monash University
Kun Chen: School of Chemistry, Monash University
Christopher Kotzur: School of Chemistry, Monash University
Changlong Xiao: School of Chemistry, Monash University
Laure Bourgeois: Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy, Monash University
Xinyi Zhang: School of Chemistry, Monash University
Douglas R. MacFarlane: School of Chemistry, Monash University

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-5

Abstract: Abstract Ammonia (NH3) is one of the most widely produced chemicals worldwide. It has application in the production of many important chemicals, particularly fertilizers. It is also, potentially, an important energy storage intermediate and clean energy carrier. Ammonia production, however, mostly uses fossil fuels and currently accounts for more than 1.6% of global CO2 emissions (0.57 Gt in 2015). Here we describe a solar-driven nanostructured photoelectrochemical cell based on plasmon-enhanced black silicon for the conversion of atmospheric N2 to ammonia producing yields of 13.3 mg m−2 h−1 under 2 suns illumination. The yield increases with pressure; the highest observed in this work was 60 mg m−2 h−1 at 7 atm. In the presence of sulfite as a reactant, the process also offers a direct solar energy route to ammonium sulfate, a fertilizer of economic importance. Although the yields are currently not sufficient for practical application, there is much scope for improvement in the active materials in this cell.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11335 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms11335

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11335

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().