CX-100300 Categorical Exclusion Determination

Tandem Particle-Slurry Batch Reactors for Solar Water Splitting
Award Number: DE-EE0006963
CX(s) Applied: A9, B3.6
Fuel Cell Technologies Office
Date:  07/06/2015
Location(s): CA
Office(s): Golden Field Office

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to provide federal funding to University of California Irvine (UCI) to design a numerical model of a centralized solar-based, hydrogen production plant that utilizes particle slurry reactors consisting of state-of-the-art materials, and a 12-inch-by-12-inch model reactor that generates hydrogen at a rate of three liters per eight hours of solar illumination.

The proposed activities would include numerical modeling and simulations of tandem, particle-slurry solar reactors where the two slurry-reactor vessels are stacked optically in series, and designing, fabricating, and evaluating the components of a practical reactor, including state-of-the-art, electrocatalyst-containing, light-absorbing particles, redox shuttles, and porous separators. Numerical modeling and simulation activities would occur at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA and at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. All bench-scale laboratory activities would occur in established laboratories at UC Irvine in Irvine, CA. The project would involve the use and handling of various hazardous materials such as nanoscale particles, metal salts, organic solvents and aqueous electrolytes. Laboratory waste would be generated at a rate of approximately 4 liters per day while experiments are running. In the laboratory, solvent and chemical fumes would be emitted, based on their room-temperature vapor pressure, but would be contained in a fume hood. Materials would be synthesized from precursors that may be combusted during synthesis at high temperature, but the exhaust from these reactions would also be vented to a fume hood or similar exhaust system.