Electrochemical Oxidation of Organic Pollutants Powered by a Silicon-Based Solar Cell

Currently available (photo-)electrochemical technologies for water treatment establish a trade-off between low-pollutant concentration and costs. This paper aims at decoupling these two variables by designing a photo-oxidation device using earth abundant materials and an electronic-free approach. The proposed device combines a graphite/graphite electrochemical system with a silicon-based solar cell that provides the necessary electrical power. First, the optimum operational voltage for the graphite/graphite electrochemical system was found to be around 1.6 V. That corresponded closely to the voltage produced by an a-Si:H/a-Si:H tandem solar cell of approximately 1.35 V. This configuration was shown to provide the best pollutant degradation in relation to the device area, removing 70% of the initial concentration of phenol and 90% of the methylene blue after 4 h of treatment. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal of these two contaminants after 4 h of treatment was also promising, 55 and 30%, respectively. Moreover, connecting several solar cells in series led to higher pollutant degradation but lower COD removal, suggesting that the degradation of the intermediate components is a limiting factor. This is expected to be due to the higher currents achieved by the series-connected configuration, which would favor other reactions such as polymerization over the degradation of intermediate species.