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Strategies to improve light utilization in solar fuel synthesis

Nature Energy volume 7, pages 13–24 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The synthesis of fuels using sunlight offers a promising sustainable solution for chemical energy storage, but inefficient utilization of the solar spectrum limits its commercial viability. Apart from fundamental improvements to (photo)catalyst materials, solar fuel production systems can also be designed to improve solar energy utilization by integrating complementary technologies that more efficiently utilize the solar spectrum. Here we review recent progress on emerging complementary approaches to better modify, enhance or distribute solar energy for sunlight-to-fuel conversion, including advanced light management, integrated thermal approaches and solar concentrators. These strategies can improve the efficiency and production rates of existing photo(electro)chemical systems and, therefore, the overall economics of solar fuel production. More broadly, the approaches highlight the necessary collaboration between materials science and engineering to help drive the adoption of a sustainable energy economy using existing technologies.

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Fig. 1: Solar energy conversion technologies.
Fig. 2: Solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiencies (\(\eta _{{\mathrm{H}}_2}\)) for selected water-splitting systems.
Fig. 3: Light management for hybrid systems.
Fig. 4: Photon wavelength manipulation using up- and downconversion for photo(electro)chemical systems.
Fig. 5: Solar concentrator and thermal-related approaches.
Fig. 6: Systems combining solar thermal approaches and photo(electro)chemical processes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Pichler and V. Andrei of the University of Cambridge and W. Hofer from OMV for helpful discussions. This work was supported by an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (GAN 793996 to Q.W.), the JSPS Leading Initiative for Excellent Young Researchers (to Q.W.), the Cambridge Trust (Cambridge Thai Foundation Award to C.P.), a Trinity–Henry Barlow Scholarship (to C.P.), an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship (to S.L.) and the OMV Group (to E.R.).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Qian Wang, Chanon Pornrungroj.

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  1. Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Qian Wang, Chanon Pornrungroj, Stuart Linley & Erwin Reisner

  2. Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    Qian Wang

  3. Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    Qian Wang

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Wang, Q., Pornrungroj, C., Linley, S. et al. Strategies to improve light utilization in solar fuel synthesis. Nat Energy 7, 13–24 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00919-1

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