Solar Photochemistry: Twenty Years of Progress ,What's Been
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January 1995 • NRELffP-433-7209 Solar Ph -Twenty Years of Progress, Been Accomplished, an Where Does It Lead? Daniel M. Blake .r1t••�=!.• ·-· • National Renewable Energy Laboratory 1617 Cole Boulevard Golden, CO 80401-3393 A national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy Managed by the Midwest Research Institute for the U.S. Department of Energy Under Contract No. DE-AC 36-83CH10093 NREL!TP-433-7209 • UC Category: 1400 • DE95004007 &!i!F'' of Progress Whal1�s Been Does It Daniel M. Blake National Renewable Energy Laboratory 1617 Cole Boulevard Golden, Colorado 80401-3393 A national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy Managed by Midwest Research Institute for the Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC36-83CH10093 Prepared under Subcontract No. SI41.3040 January 1995 NOTICE This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. 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Box 62 Oak Ridge, TN 37831 Prices available by calling (615) 576-8401 Available to the public from: National Technical Information Service (NTIS) U.S. Department of Commerce 5285 Port Royal Road Springfield, VA 22161 (703) 487-4650 t!) Printed on paper containing at least 50% wastepaper and 10% postconsumer waste SOLAR PHOTOCHEMISTRY-TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS, WHArs BEEN ACCOMPLISHED, AND WHERE DOES IT LEAD? Daniel M. Blake Industrial Technologies Division National Renewable Energy Laboratory Golden, Colorado ABSTRACT given in Table 1. It has been more than 20 years since the first oil embargo. Table 1. Representative Chemical Reactions That Can Store That event created an awareness of the need for alternative Solar Energy sources of energy and renewed interest in combining sunlight and chemistry to produce the chemicals and materials required by industry. This paper will review approaches that (kJ/mol) (kJ/mol) have been taken, progress that has been made, and give some projections for the near and longer term prospects for 286 237 commercialization of solar photochemistry. INTRODUCTION 703 The dramatic increases in the cost of oil beginning in 1974 focussed attention on the need to develop alternative sources 286 237 of energy. It has long been recognized that the sunlight falling on the earth's surface is more than adequate to supply all the energy that human activity requires. The challenge is to collect and convert this dilute and intermittent energy to forms that are convenient and economical or to use the photons in place of those from lamps. The subject of this paper is the 110 use of sunlight as a photon source for photochemical reactions. As a consequence, work on thermal and thermal catalytic reactions such as pyrolysis, and reforming are not covered. Solar photochemistry is broadly defined to include chemical production by both direct photochemistry (abiotic) and via photosynthetic organisms. These processes generally start with substances in low energy, highly oxidized forms. An exception is the last From the outset it was recognized that direct conversion of. example which is a valence isomerization reaction. The light to chemical energy held promise for the production of requirements for viable processes were outlined by Bolton (5], fuels, chemical feedstocks, and for the storage of solar as follows (with some modification by the author): energy. Production of chemicals by reactions that are uphill in the thermodynamic sense can utilize solar energy and store 1. The photochemical reaction must be endergonic it in forms that can be used in a variety of ways. A wide range 2. The process must be cyclic (for energy storage of chemical transformations that illustrate the concept have this must be the case, for carbon based fuels recycle been proposed (1,2,3,4]. A few representative examples are of C02 would reduce greenhouse gases) Daniel M. Blake 3. Side reactions that degrade the photochemical The processes of interest to us in this article are reactants must be absent photochemical hence they require that some component of 4. The reaction should use as much of the solar the reacting system be capable of absorbing a photon in the spectrum as possible solar spectrum. Normally, each photon can initiate at most 5. The quantum yield (moles product/mole of one chemical event hence the efficiency or quantum yield photons absorbed) for the photochemical step defined as moles product/moles photons absorbed can be at should be near unity most one. The exception is if the photon initiated event starts 6. The back reaction should be very slow to allow a free radical chain reaction, in which case the quantum yield storage of the products but rapid when based on moles of product formed per mole of photons triggered to recover the energy content absorbedcan be greater than one. Because photons can be 7. The products of the photochemical reaction treated like any other chemical reagent in the process, their should be easy to store and transport number is a critical element in the consideration of solar 8. The reagents and container material should be photochemistry. The distribution of the number of photons in inexpensive and non-toxic the solar spectrum is given in Rgure 1. It can be seen that" 2 9. The process should operate under aerobic the flux is below a millimole/m sec in any given wavelength conditions band at one-sun light intensities. In general the wavelengths above about 800 nm are Jess likely to contribute to The key feature is that the reactions would raise the energy photochemistry and that portion of the solar spectrum must be content of the chemicals using solar energy. It was dealt with as waste heat in a chemical process. recognized from the outset that this approach is in the realm of long-term research and development. REVIEW OF PROGRESS A second pathway for the use of sunlight in photochemistry Endergonlc Photochemical Reactions is to use solar photons as replacements for those from artificial sources such as arc lamps, fluorescent lamps, and lasers that The archetypal uphill, endergonic, solar photoconversion are powered by electricity . The goal in this case is to provide reaction is photosynthesis, converting water and carbon a costeffective and energy conserving source of light to drive dioxide to glucose and oxygen using sunlight as the energy photochemical reactions that produce useful products. source, which Is shown above. This process has been the subject of intense study for decades because of its key The latter approach can build on the well developed importanceto life on earth. A high level of understanding has understanding of organic and inorganic photochemistry [6,7). unfolded [9]. Photosynthetic plants have evolved to use the Photochemical reactions can be used to carry out a wide visible portionof the solar spectrum where photons are most range of chemical syntheses ranging from the simple to the abundant and of adequate energy to carry out the chemistry complex. For example, (some chemical reactions are shown required. Plants use light with wavelengths shorter than about in schematic, unbalanced form): 700 nm, are adapted to use Jess than one sun of light intensity, and integrate available sunlight over long times [5]. hv, solvent To do this they have evolved a photosynthetic reaction center Mo(C0)6 + C5H5N ---------------- > Mo(C0)5(C5H5N) + CO to absorb the light and store its energy long enough to carry out the chemistry. To generate enough reducing potential the 0 processrequires the absorption of two photons. The complex reaction center structurefunctions to collect light and separate � the positive and negative charges (oxidized and reduced � sites) formed when the photons are absorbed so they can be held long enough for the complexchemical transformations to Processes of this type can start with more complex occur. compounds than would fuel producing or energy storage reactions and convert them to substances where the Because of nature's demonstrated success with photochemical step adds to the value to the chemical photosynthesis a significant amount of R&D continues to be products. The principles of photochemistry are well directed toward an artifiCial analog. A defining feature of this understood and examples of a wide range of types of approach is understanding the mechanisms of electron synthetic transformations known. Therefore the problem transfer and developing methods to separate charge [10,1 1 ]. becomes one of identifying applications where using solar The concept can be illustrated in a schematic way as follows photons is possible and makes economic sense. for a chemical structure that includes a photosensitizer, P; a linking component. L; and a quencher, a. In this example the The third path for using sunlight In chemical production Is to excited state P* plays the role of electron donor [11]: utilize photosynthetic organisms to produce high value chemical products. A wide range of chemicals are available P-L-Q + hv � *P-L-Q (excitation) from the biomass produced by simple or complex plants [8]. *P-L-Q � P-L-Q* (energy transfer) *P-L-Q � p•-L-a· (electron transfer) 2 Daniel M.