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Treatment of Organic Pollutants Using a Solar Energy Driven Photo‐Oxidation Device
Author(s) -
PerezRodriguez Paula,
Bennani Yasmina,
Alani Mathew Jose,
Smith Wilson,
Rietveld Luuk Cornelis,
Zeman Miro,
Smets Arno Hendrikus Marie
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
advanced sustainable systems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.499
H-Index - 24
ISSN - 2366-7486
DOI - 10.1002/adsu.201700010
Subject(s) - pollutant , degradation (telecommunications) , solar cell , materials science , aqueous solution , phenol , optoelectronics , solar energy , voltage , band gap , nanotechnology , environmental science , chemical engineering , chemistry , computer science , electrical engineering , telecommunications , organic chemistry , engineering
Two of the main problems of society in the near future are the access to clean water and energy. In particular, organic pollutants can be a major health threat. Within available methods, a trade‐off can be established between the pollutant treatment price and the final pollutant concentration that can be achieved. In this paper, a water treatment device is proposed in order to decouple these two variables. It consists of a BiVO 4 photoanode combined with a thin film silicon solar cell. BiVO 4 is an earth‐abundant material with a bandgap energy of 2.4 eV. Here, its good catalytic properties are shown for the degradation of phenol and chloroform when combined with an external bias voltage of 1 V versus Ag/AgCl. In addition, to cover the voltage needs, an a‐Si:H/nc‐Si:H solar cell has been coupled with the BiVO 4 photoanode. This solar cell has been specifically designed to work under the transmitted spectrum of BiVO 4 , with thicknesses of 300 and 2000 nm for the top and bottom cell, respectively. This device has successfully been fabricated, and tested for removal of organic contaminants from an aqueous solution, performing even better than the BiVO 4 photoanode alone with a similar external bias voltage applied.