Solar Fuels

Conversion of solar energy into chemical fuels is an attractive method of solar energy storage. The challenge is to produce large amounts of chemical fuels directly from sunlight in robust, cost-effective ways. Two important routes, alone or in combination, for producing storable and transportable fuels from solar energy are electrochemical and photochemical processes. The electrochemical route uses solar electricity made from photovoltaic or concentrating solar thermal systems followed by an electrolytic process; the photochemical/photobiological route makes direct use of solar photon energy for photochemical and photobiological processes.