Phys.org October 21, 2024 One of the biggest challenges in electrochemical water splitting is oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a sluggish reaction in which water molecules are broken down into oxygen and hydrogen. The OER can be accelerated by using noble metal catalysts; however, these metals are expensive and scarce, and speeding up the reaction requires additional energy. An international team of researchers (USA – Perdue University, China, Taiwan, Germany) has developed a new method using iridium coordinated with dimethylimidazole (MI) as a reaction accelerator for electrochemical splitting of water which accelerated the production of hydrogen and made it more sustainable. […]
Tag Archives: Hydrogen production
New nanomaterials could boost hydrogen production for clean energy
Phys.org August 5, 2024 Nanosizing confers unique functions in materials such as graphene and quantum dots. An international team of researchers (UK, China) described two nanoscale-covalent organic frameworks (nano-COFs) that exhibited exceptionally high activity for photocatalytic hydrogen production that resulted from their size and morphology. Compared to bulk analogues, the downsizing of COFs crystals using surfactants provided greatly improved water dispersibility and light-harvesting properties. The nano-COFs showed high hydrogen evolution rate. They observed a reverse concentration-dependent photocatalytic phenomenon where a higher photocatalytic activity was found at a lower catalyst concentration, and the materials showed a molecule-like excitonic nature, a function […]
Researchers harness the sun to produce hydrogen gas from water
Phys.org March 26, 2024 To understand the factors that promote bimetallic H–H coupling researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, subjected molecular iridium catalysts to undergo photoelectrochemical dihydrogen (H2) evolution via a bimolecular mechanism. Covalently tethered diiridium catalysts evolved H2 from neutral water faster than monometallic catalysts, even at lower overpotential. The unexpected origin of this improvement was non-covalent supramolecular self-assembly into nanoscale aggregates that efficiently harvested light and form H–H bonds. Monometallic catalysts containing long-chain alkane substituents leveraged the self-assembly to evolve H2 from neutral water at low overpotential and with rates close to the […]
Synthesis of Clean Hydrogen Gas from Waste Plastic at Zero Net Cost
Science Daily September 14, 2023 Hydrogen gas is the primary storable fuel for pollution-free energy production, with over 90 million tonnes used globally per year. More than 95% of H2 is synthesized through metal-catalyzed steam methane reforming that produces 11 tonnes of CO2 per tonne H2. “Green H2” from water electrolysis using renewable energy evolves no CO2, but costs 2–3x more, making it presently economically unviable. Researchers at Rice University have demonstrated catalyst-free conversion of waste plastic into clean H2 along with high purity graphene. The scalable procedure evolved no CO2 when deconstructing polyolefins and produces H2 in purities up […]
Research creates hydrogen-producing living droplets, paving way for alternative future energy source
Phys.org November 25, 2020 Normally, algal cells fix carbon dioxide and produce oxygen by photosynthesis. An international team of researchers used sugary droplets packed with living algal cells to generate hydrogen, rather than oxygen, by photosynthesis. They trapped ten thousand or so algal cells in each droplet, which were then crammed together by osmotic compression. By burying the cells deep inside the droplets, oxygen levels fell to a level that switched on special enzymes called hydrogenases that hijacked the normal photosynthetic pathway to produce hydrogen. In this way, around a quarter of a million microbial factories, typically only one-tenth of […]
Russian scientists found an effective way to obtain fuel for hydrogen engines
EurekAlert February 20, 2020 Catalysts used for releasing hydrogen from an H2O molecule are made from platinum, or molybdenum which are expensive hence the output energy is expensive too. Researchers in Russia used thin films of molybdenum sulfide deposited on the surface of glassy carbon instead. In this case, the material consumption will be minimal, and the surface area of the catalyst will be the same as if it was completely made from molybdenum sulfide. They measured electrochemical characteristics which indicated that the differences in the achievable hydrogen evolution reactions performances of the films could be caused by their unique […]