Calnan, S.; Aschbrenner, S.; Bao, F.; Kemppainen, E.; Dorbandt, I.; Schlatmann, R. Prospects for Hermetic Sealing of Scaled-Up Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Generators for Reliable and Risk Free Operation. Energies2019, 12, 4176.
Calnan, S.; Aschbrenner, S.; Bao, F.; Kemppainen, E.; Dorbandt, I.; Schlatmann, R. Prospects for Hermetic Sealing of Scaled-Up Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Generators for Reliable and Risk Free Operation. Energies 2019, 12, 4176.
Calnan, S.; Aschbrenner, S.; Bao, F.; Kemppainen, E.; Dorbandt, I.; Schlatmann, R. Prospects for Hermetic Sealing of Scaled-Up Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Generators for Reliable and Risk Free Operation. Energies2019, 12, 4176.
Calnan, S.; Aschbrenner, S.; Bao, F.; Kemppainen, E.; Dorbandt, I.; Schlatmann, R. Prospects for Hermetic Sealing of Scaled-Up Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Generators for Reliable and Risk Free Operation. Energies 2019, 12, 4176.
Abstract
Photoelectrochemical systems have the potential to contribute to de-carbonation of the energy system because solar energy can be directly converted to hydrogen which can be burnt without the release of greenhouse gases. However, meaningful deployment of photoelectrochemical (PEC) technology in the global energy system, even when highly efficient scaled up devices become available, shall only be a reality when their safe and reliable operation can be guaranteed over serveral years of service life. The first part of the review discusses the importance of hermetic sealing of up scaled PEC device provided by the casing and sealing joints from a reliability and risk perspective. The second part of the review presents a survey of fully functional devices and early demonstrators and uses this to establish the extent to which the state of the art in PEC device design address the issue of hermetic sealing. The survey revealed that current material choices and sealing techniques are still unsuitable for scale –up and commercialization. Accordingly, we examined possible synergies with related photovoltaic and electrochemical devices that have been commericalised and derived therefrom, recommendations for future research routes that could accelerate the development of hermetic sealings of PEC devices.
Keywords
photoelectrochemical; solar hydrogen generator; hermetic sealing, reliability, safety, scale- up
Subject
Engineering, Energy and Fuel Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
