Following the ASSET lab’s Research Seminar Series (RSS), this week (21/03/2023) we had the opportunity to host Dr. Yongpeng Liu (YL), who shared with us his progress on hydrogen production using hybrid and inorganic (photo)electrodes.
Hydrogen is a bulk commodity with a huge market size (ca. 200B USD, 2022). This can be accounted for by the fact that large industries such as the synthesis of ammonia, methanol and refineries, all rely on hydrogen. But this is mainly produced by steam methane reforming, at a low cost but with a tremendous environmental impact due to the release of CO2.Therefore, finding alternatives clean technologies to produce “green” hydrogen is one of the challenges of our time. Among the various possibilities, water electrolysis powered by renewables is one of prevalent candidates regarding the prospects of scaling up and competitive price of H2. In this talk, entitled “Synthetic and Enzymatic Catalysts for (Photo)electrochemical Water Splitting”, YL explored various systems for hydrogen production, namely, photoelectrochemical systems, wherein the semiconductor electrode absorbs light and carries out the catalytic reaction, as well as dark electrocatalysts, which could be eventually wired to a photovoltaic device. Briefly, YL explored various semiconductor materials for solar hydrogen production elucidating the parameters that govern the performance to establish a roadmap to further improve their efficiency and hence, afford competitive photoelectrochemical reactors. In this sense, he mostly focused on the prospects of utilizing pristine Cu(In,Ga)S2 semiconductor photoelectrodes to directly produce solar hydrogen. Here, YL relied on an assortment of spectroelectrochemical tools combined with theoretical calculations to reveal the atomic nature of the active sites for the hydrogen evolution reaction, as well as, of the energy traps that limit the performance. On the other hand, YL presented a more recent work on hybrid electrodes based on the immobilization of enzymes to leverage their unique selectivity for Hydrogen production. Overall, the open Q&A after the talk explored the upscaling of bio-inspired systems and drawbacks as well as specific aspects of the operando characterization using Raman and UV-Vis spectroscopy, among others.
[...] water electrolysis powered by renewables is one of prevalent candidates regarding the prospects of scaling up and competitive price of H2. [...] YL explored various systems for hydrogen production, namely, photoelectrochemical systems, [...], as well as dark electrocatalysts, which could be eventually wired to a photovoltaic device
Bio: YL is currently a postdoctoral researcher (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) within Prof. Reisner Group, at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry (University of Cambridge), where he joined in 2021 to explore the use of enzyme and bio-inspired systems to perform various electrochemical transformations. Before that, YL received his B. Eng. In Material Science and Engineering (2015) in Huazhong University of Science and Technology and a M. Sc. In Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in the University of Glasgow (2016). He completed his PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (2021) in Prof. Sivula’s lab (LIMNO) with Prof. Guijarro (UA) and Prof. Sivula (EPFL) as thesis advisors. Here, he gained experience in the field (photo)electrochemical water splitting and CO2 conversion as well as in various spectroelectrochemical tools that he now leverages in a new field. Among several distinctions, YL was recipient of the best Oral presentation Award (MRS meeting, 2021) and the Top 8% thesis distinction.
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