Issue 2, 2024

Untapped potential of scrap brass alloy: a new frontier in the use of brass-based photocathodes for stable and durable photoelectrochemical water splitting

Abstract

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising way to produce green hydrogen. However, one of the bottlenecks in realizing scalable green hydrogen production systems is the inability to identify and fabricate earth abundant, stable, and durable photocathodes. The main challenges with the reported photocathodes so far are their instability in aqueous solutions and the use of precious unabundant materials. To this end, the use of scrap materials to fabricate highly stable photocathodes would solve the two main challenges. Herein, scrap brass alloys with different zinc contents were used to fabricate photocathodes for photoelectrochemical green hydrogen production. The scrap brass alloy with 5% Zn showed enhancement in the photocurrent density of −0.26 mA cm−2 at 0.62 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), high long-term stability up to four hours under continuous illumination, high charge carrier density of 6.2 × 1021 cm−3 and less total resistance than the other brass samples. Through electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), the presence of surface states was verified. The 95Cu–5Zn sample showed an amount of evolved hydrogen of 0.2658 μmole after one hour of continuous illumination (area = 0.5 cm2), while the 100Cu sample only showed 3.965 nmole after 20 minutes of continuous illumination before being completely reduced to copper. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to study the optical and electronic properties of the best-performing sample. This work is the first to systematically and fundamentally study scrap brass as a promising material for a more stable and durable PEC water splitting.

Graphical abstract: Untapped potential of scrap brass alloy: a new frontier in the use of brass-based photocathodes for stable and durable photoelectrochemical water splitting

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Xim 2023
Accepted
17 Qun 2024
First published
17 Qun 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Energy Adv., 2024,3, 430-441

Untapped potential of scrap brass alloy: a new frontier in the use of brass-based photocathodes for stable and durable photoelectrochemical water splitting

R. Leil, M. M. Abodouh, N. Javed, S. Sreekumar, H. Pacheco, N. Tarek, D. M. O’Carroll and N. K. Allam, Energy Adv., 2024, 3, 430 DOI: 10.1039/D3YA00534H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements