Contribution to the simulation of photo-electrochemical cells

The increasing demand for energy, partially dependent on the expected growthof the world population, and the need to reduce our global footprint to containthe consequences of climate change, leads to the urgent need to find sustain-able and environmental friendly solutions. Researchers around the world areworking to find the efficient and viable ways to use natural sustainable re-sources such as solar and wind power to produce energy. One of the mainissues with these kinds of sources is their storage ability. In order to solve thisproblem, the use of hydrogen has been proposed, given its qualities as a greenenergy carrier. In particular, recent works focused on the direct H2 production using a Photoelectrochemical cell which is able to convert solar photon flux into hydrogen thanks to water splitting reactions. The aim of this work was toinvestigate the possibility to model with a continuum approach the physicalphenomena involved, at very different scales, in a Photoelectrochemical cell,and try to reproduce the models and codes used and developed in the litera-ture up to now, in order to propose a useful tool for the design and scale up ofa complete working cell. Furthermore, the challenges in developing a modelthat simulates a whole cell were analysed and alternative modelling solutionshave been discussed an tested. In one hand, a kinetic model that simulatesthe coupled physical phenomena involved in the electrolyte part of the Pho-toelectrochemical cell was developed. In the other hand the work was focusedon how to model with a continuum approach the quantuum phenomena thatoccur in the photosemiconductor, in order to comprehend the complex model-ing of the liquid junction. The analysis carried out in this work is the starting point of the development of a generic model for Photoelectrochemical cell.