Development and Validation of a 3D Printed electrochemical Cell for the Study of Photoelectrochemical / Photovoltaic Hybrid Systems

Abstract

By its ability to integrate solar energy conversion and water electrolysis in a single device, Photoelectrochemical Cell (PEC) has received a lot of interest since the published work of Fujishima and Honda in 1972. By converting solar energy into a chemical fuel, PEC is solving the issue of the intermittent energy output of electricity produced by Photovoltaics (PV), which results in grid instability due to the mismatch between the peak output and the peak demand. In this work, the main focus was to develop a test environment for the PEC. The test environment will help us to test on the Solar to Hydrogen (STH) efficiency of the PEC. The designed apparatus for the PEC was done using Autodesk Inventor, thereby resulting in a prototype that can be easily reproduced using the software and the 3D printer. The validation of the printed apparatus was on a simple fabricated photoanodes of the material titanium dioxide TiO2. We also found out that the material 'resin clear standard' from Formlabs can be utilized as a material for the PEC apparatus as it showed an optimum properties for the PEC environment