Abstract
The photoelectrochemical (PEC) reduction of CO2 to syngas is an attractive strategy for solar-to-fuel conversion. However, the high overpotential, inadequate selectivity, and high cost demand for alternative solutions. Here, we demonstrate a hybrid microbial photoelectrochemical (MPEC) system that contains a microbial anode capable of oxidizing waste organics in wastewater and reducing the oxidation potential by 1.1 V compared with abiotic water oxidation using a PEC anode. Moreover, the MPEC employs a power management circuit (PMC) to enable parallel low-energy-producing reactions operated in the same solution medium to conquer high-overpotential reactions. The nanowire silicon photocathode integrated with a selective single-atom nickel catalyst (Si NW/Ni SA) achieved up to ∼80% faradic efficiency for CO generation with a highly tunable CO:H2 generation ratio (0.1 to 6.8). When the bioanode was coupled with the Si NW/Ni SA, up to 1.1 mA cm−2 of spontaneous photocurrent density was obtained for high-rate syngas generation.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 2149-2161 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Joule |
Volume | 4 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 14 2020 |
Externally published | Yes |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Energy
Keywords
- microbial electrochemical oxidation
- microbial photoelectrochemical CO reduction
- self-sustaining system
- solar energy conversion
- syngas generation
- wastewater treatment
- water, energy, and carbon nexus