Highest Solar-to-Hydrogen Conversion Efficiency in Cu2ZnSnS4 Photocathodes and Its Directly Unbiased Solar Seawater Splitting

IF 26.6 1区材料科学 Q1 Engineering

Nano-Micro Letters Pub Date : 2025-05-16 DOI:10.1007/s40820-025-01755-8

Muhammad Abbas, Shuo Chen, Zhidong Li, Muhammad Ishaq, Zhuanghao Zheng, Juguang Hu, Zhenghua Su, Yanbo Li, Liming Ding, Guangxing Liang

{"title":"Highest Solar-to-Hydrogen Conversion Efficiency in Cu2ZnSnS4 Photocathodes and Its Directly Unbiased Solar Seawater Splitting","authors":"Muhammad Abbas, Shuo Chen, Zhidong Li, Muhammad Ishaq, Zhuanghao Zheng, Juguang Hu, Zhenghua Su, Yanbo Li, Liming Ding, Guangxing Liang","doi":"10.1007/s40820-025-01755-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite being an excellent candidate for a photocathode, Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) performance is limited by suboptimal bulk and interfacial charge carrier dynamics. In this work, we introduce a facile and versatile CZTS precursor seed layer engineering technique, which significantly enhances crystal growth and mitigates detrimental defects in the post-sulfurized CZTS light-absorbing films. This effective optimization of defects and charge carrier dynamics results in a highly efficient CZTS/CdS/TiO2/Pt thin-film photocathode, achieving a record half-cell solar-to-hydrogen (HC-STH) conversion efficiency of 9.91%. Additionally, the photocathode exhibits a highest photocurrent density (Jph) of 29.44 mA cm−2 (at 0 VRHE) and favorable onset potential (Von) of 0.73 VRHE. Furthermore, our CTZS photocathode demonstrates a remarkable Jph of 16.54 mA cm−2 and HC-STH efficiency of 2.56% in natural seawater, followed by an impressive unbiased STH efficiency of 2.20% in a CZTS-BiVO4 tandem cell. The scalability of this approach is underscored by the successful fabrication of a 4 × 4 cm2 module, highlighting its significant potential for practical, unbiased in situ solar seawater splitting applications.","PeriodicalId":714,"journal":{"name":"Nano-Micro Letters","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":26.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40820-025-01755-8.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nano-Micro Letters","FirstCategoryId":"88","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40820-025-01755-8","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Engineering","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Despite being an excellent candidate for a photocathode, Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) performance is limited by suboptimal bulk and interfacial charge carrier dynamics. In this work, we introduce a facile and versatile CZTS precursor seed layer engineering technique, which significantly enhances crystal growth and mitigates detrimental defects in the post-sulfurized CZTS light-absorbing films. This effective optimization of defects and charge carrier dynamics results in a highly efficient CZTS/CdS/TiO₂/Pt thin-film photocathode, achieving a record half-cell solar-to-hydrogen (HC-STH) conversion efficiency of 9.91%. Additionally, the photocathode exhibits a highest photocurrent density (J_ph) of 29.44 mA cm⁻² (at 0 V_RHE) and favorable onset potential (V_on) of 0.73 V_RHE. Furthermore, our CTZS photocathode demonstrates a remarkable J_ph of 16.54 mA cm⁻² and HC-STH efficiency of 2.56% in natural seawater, followed by an impressive unbiased STH efficiency of 2.20% in a CZTS-BiVO₄ tandem cell. The scalability of this approach is underscored by the successful fabrication of a 4 × 4 cm² module, highlighting its significant potential for practical, unbiased in situ solar seawater splitting applications.

查看原文本刊更多论文

Cu2ZnSnS4光电阴极的最高太阳能-氢转换效率及其直接无偏太阳能-海水分裂。

尽管Cu2ZnSnS4 （CZTS）是光电阴极的优秀候选者，但其性能受到非最佳体和界面载流子动力学的限制。在这项工作中，我们介绍了一种简单而通用的CZTS前驱体种子层工程技术，该技术显著提高了晶体生长，减轻了后硫化CZTS吸光膜中的有害缺陷。这种缺陷和载流子动力学的有效优化导致了高效的CZTS/CdS/TiO2/Pt薄膜光电阴极，实现了创纪录的9.91%的半电池太阳能到氢（HC-STH）转换效率。此外，光电阴极的最高光电流密度（Jph）为29.44 mA cm-2 (0 VRHE)，有利的起始电位（Von）为0.73 VRHE。此外，我们的CTZS光电阴极在自然海水中的Jph为16.54 mA cm-2， HC-STH效率为2.56%，其次是cts - bivo4串联电池的无偏STH效率为2.20%。这种方法的可扩展性通过一个4 × 4 cm2模块的成功制造而得到强调，突出了其在实际、无偏差的原位太阳能海水分裂应用中的巨大潜力。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Nano-Micro Letters NANOSCIENCE & NANOTECHNOLOGY-MATERIALS SCIENCE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

CiteScore

32.60

自引率

4.90%

发文量

981

审稿时长

1.1 months

期刊介绍： Nano-Micro Letters is a peer-reviewed, international, interdisciplinary, and open-access journal published under the SpringerOpen brand. Nano-Micro Letters focuses on the science, experiments, engineering, technologies, and applications of nano- or microscale structures and systems in various fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, material science, and pharmacy.It also explores the expanding interfaces between these fields. Nano-Micro Letters particularly emphasizes the bottom-up approach in the length scale from nano to micro. This approach is crucial for achieving industrial applications in nanotechnology, as it involves the assembly, modification, and control of nanostructures on a microscale.