Environmental Science & Technology
Environmental Science & Technology
5 years ago

Self-Driven Photoelectrochemical Splitting of H2S for S and H2 Recovery and Simultaneous Electricity Generation

Self-Driven Photoelectrochemical Splitting of H2S for S and H2 Recovery and Simultaneous Electricity Generation
managing.editor@est.acs.org (American Chemical Society)
A novel, facile self-driven photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) system was established for highly selective and efficient recovery of H2S and simultaneous electricity production. The key ideas were the self-bias function between a WO3 photoanode and a Si/PVC photocathode due to their mismatched Fermi levels and the special cyclic redox reaction mechanism of I–/I3–. Under solar light, the system facilitated the separation of holes in the photoanode and electrons in the photocathode, which then generated electricity. Cyclic redox reactions were produced in the photoanode region as follows: I– was transformed into I3– by photoholes or hydroxyl radicals, H2S was oxidized to S by I3–, and I3– was then reduced to I–. Meanwhile, H+ was efficiently converted to H2 in the photocathode region. In the system, H2S was uniquely oxidized to sulfur but not to polysulfide (Sxn-) because of the mild oxidation capacity of I3–. High recovery rates for S and H2 were obtained up to ∼1.04 mg h–1 cm–1 and ∼0.75 mL h–1 cm–1, respectively, suggesting that H2S was completely converted into H2 and S. In addition, the output power density of the system reached ∼0.11 mW cm–2. The proposed PEC-H2S system provides a self-sustaining, energy-saving method for simultaneous H2S treatment and energy recovery.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b03116

DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b03116

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.