Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting
A photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting cell uses solar energy to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is an excellent chemical fuel and can be efficiently transformed into electrical energy by a fuel cell. The flexibility of transforming solar energy to hydrogen and back to electricity is a promising step towards a hydrogen energy economy.
At ICP, we aim to understand the physics of PEC water splitting and describe the optical and electronic processes with numerical models. Our models are used for understanding the efficiency bottlenecks of PEC cells in order to bring them closer to industrial application.
Links
PECHouse2/3 project
Funding
Swiss Federal Office of Energy 
Swiss National Science Foundation 