A research team at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland has announced they have
come upon a new catalyst for electrolysis to
split hydrogen out of water. In a serendipitous
moment the team led by Xile Hu made this discovery
during an electrochemical experiment. Hu said,
“It’s a perfect illustration of the famous serendipity
principle in fundamental research. Thanks to this
unexpected result, we’ve revealed a unique phenomenon.”
Being alert has rewards when lightning strikes, thanks
to Professor Hu and his group the new hydrogen catalyst
has been found.
Splitting hydrogen is an energy expensive process.
For industrial use most hydrogen is extracted using heat
for the energy and sources such as natural gas with more
easily cracked apart molecular bonds. Cheap free
hydrogen is a dream of energy nirvana for many, but as a
practical matter having cheap hydrogen sources would
have a basic cost savings across a wide swath of
industrial production. It’s an important
breakthrough, and how low the operating costs get are
important data.
Professor Hu’s team discovered that a
molybdenum-based catalyst allows hydrogen production at
room temperature, and is inexpensive and efficient. EPFL
has already started an international patent filing based
on the discovery.
The team, Daniel Merki, Stéphane Fierro, Heron
Vrubel and Xile Hu has published the paper Amorphous
Molybdenum Sulfide Films as Catalysts for
Electrochemical Hydrogen Production in Water in the
journal Chemical Science.
The background is water is composed of hydrogen and
oxygen. The water molecule can be cracked apart from
flowing an electrical current between electrodes in the
process known as electrolysis. As this is a slow and
energy consuming reaction, platinum is generally used as
a catalyst to improve the production rate. But platinum
is a dreadfully expensive material that has tripled in
price over the last decade.
Now EPFL scientists have shown that abundant and
commercially available amorphous molybdenum sulphides
are efficient catalysts and hydrogen production cost can
be significantly lowered. That’s a grand statement
yet the press release isn’t conveniently clear on making
a comparison. What is clear is 15 mA cm?2 at ? =
200 mV) will get the job done. This is not a lot
of power and someone will kick in the comparative
numbers.
The other significant benefit is the catalysts are
stable and compatible with acidic, neutral or basic
conditions of the water and the rate of the hydrogen
production is faster than other catalysts of the similar
price.
The discovery opens up some interesting possibilities
for industrial applications. Plus it could offer a tool
in the area of solar energy storage.
The catch is as with all the water splitting
technologies is the hydrogen gas bubbles out along with
the oxygen making
oxyhydrogen gas also known as Browns Gas, a ready to
ignite fuel mixture. Getting the hydrogen and
oxygen separated without any possible ignition is the
next step to useful electrolysis of water beyond a
process that reignites the oxyhydrogen gas for the heat
and pressure gain.
Its quite a breakthrough, the dam holding up hydrogen
production has a trickle over the top now, a hint that
splitting water is an idea that with more research might
get to a lower cost industrial scale. Some
engineers are already calculating if money can be saved,
and the independent experimenters are likely thrilled to
get an improvement over the popular stainless steel
plate method.
The EPFL team has made the breakthrough. It has
certainly set off a new round exploration. We’re
one step closer to economical hydrogen production from
water.
By. Brian Westenhaus
Source:
A New Way to Produce Hydrogen
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