GIST Develops High-Efficiency Eco-Friendly Solar Hydrogen Production Technology

(From left) Professor Lee Kwang-hee, Professor Lee Sang-han, Dr. Seo Se-hoon, and PhD candidate Choi Ho-jung. Photo by GIST.

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Cho Hyung-joo] The research team led by Professors Kwanghee Lee and Sanghan Lee from the Department of New Materials Engineering at GIST (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology) announced on the 13th that they have developed a technology that enables efficient hydrogen production without expensive platinum by combining nanostructured molybdenum disulfide catalysts with organic metal halide perovskite solar cells.

Photoelectrochemical water splitting using perovskite faces challenges because perovskite materials themselves are vulnerable to moisture, resulting in insufficient stability. So far, perovskite photoelectrodes with high efficiency have all been combined with expensive platinum catalysts, protective layers, and perovskite, causing cost issues that hinder commercialization.

To address this, the research team fabricated molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), one of the representative platinum-alternative catalysts for hydrogen evolution reactions, on a perovskite protective layer (titanium foil) using pulsed laser deposition, a typical physical vapor deposition method.

The perovskite photoelectrode developed by the research team successfully prevented the rapid initial performance degradation of the photoelectrode caused by the easy delamination of conventional platinum catalysts, thanks to the high stability and efficiency of MoS2. It achieved the longest stability of 120 hours and the highest half-cell efficiency of 11.07% among reported perovskite photoelectrodes to date.

Professor Sanghan Lee stated, “The greatest significance of this research achievement is that it demonstrated the possibility of fabricating high-efficiency, high-stability perovskite-based photoelectrodes without expensive platinum catalysts,” adding, “It is expected to contribute to accelerating the practical application of eco-friendly hydrogen production technology in the future.”

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