[21p-C301-1~10] 3.12 Semiconductor optical devices (formerly 3.13)

[21p-C301-10] Water splitting reaction using GaInP/InGaAs/Ge 3-junction concentrator solar cell

〇Ryotaro Fujita¹, Harufumi Takada¹, Taiga Shibuya¹, Yukito Masuoka¹, Shiro Uchida¹ (1.Chiba Inst.)

Keywords:hydrogen generation

Recently, hydrogen has been attracting attention as an alternative energy source instead of fossil fuels. Artificial photosynthesis to produce hydrogen has been studied in many approaches. On the other hand, water splitting systems directly using the electric power of solar cells were reported. In this study, we investigated the conversion efficiency from solar energy to hydrogen energy (STH) of the water-splitting system using InGaP/InGaAs 3-junction concentrator solar cell. In order to improve the STH efficiency, the resistances of the solar cell and the water electrolysis were adjusted to the same values by changing the irradiated pseudo sunlight intensity. We conducted this water-splitting experiment under 4-suns. As a result, the STH efficiency of 4.9% was obtained.