In the search to find an environmentally friendly alternative for fossil fuels, scientists from the Tokyo University of Science developed a new technique for safely and efficiently producing 25 times more hydrogen fuel by using a specific type of rust and light source.
Scientists achieved this new technique by using light from a mercury/xenon lamp, a water-methanol solution and a form of rust called α-FeOOH to act as the catalyst, resulting in the team producing 25 times more hydrogen when compared to the traditional method of using titanium instead of α-FeOOH.
Scientists also discovered that this particular type of rust appears to help stop the hydrogen gas from re-coupling with the oxygen in the container, which allows for easier separation and heading off any potentially explosive hazard. As an added benefit, their new hydrogen-producing configuration went on to produce hydrogen for an astonishing 400 hours.
According to Professor Katsumata, “We were really surprised at the generation of hydrogen using this catalyst because most of the iron oxides are not known to reduce to hydrogen,”
“Subsequently, we searched for the condition for activating α-FeOOH and found that oxygen was an indispensable factor, which was the second surprise because many studies showed that oxygen suppresses hydrogen production by capturing the excited electrons.”
New Atlas Rust and light combine for a 25X boost in hydrogen production: Scientists at the Tokyo University of Science have used rust as a catalyst in light-assisted hydrogen production from organic waste,… https://t.co/jmbnsUtJwR #Hydrogen #TokyoUniversityofScience Via @nwtls pic.twitter.com/yZDYtB2KBj — Streamlab ZA (@Streamlab_za) February 28, 2020
The research done by Professor Katsumata and his team represents key advancements in the production of a clean, zero-emission force of energy. The team now plans on studying what role oxygen plays in activating light-induced α-FeOOH reactions, as the process completely stopped working when oxygen was removed from the reaction chamber.
Pyrhan on March 8th, 2020 at 12:14 UTC »
Link to the actual paper:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/chem.201903642
This is called photocatalytic water splitting, something I've worked on before. (It's a significant chunk of my thesis).
I now have little hope for this as a viable method of hydrogen production: in terms of efficiency, it flat out loses to a simple photovoltaic + electrolyser combination.
For instance, in the paper in question, they had to use UV light (Hg-Xe lamp) to get it to work. Only 3.3% of solar photons are in the UV, so that's already a hard upper limit on their efficiency.
And they used methanol as a sacrificial reagent. So, really, they're only converting methanol to hydrogen, with water as an intermediate. Burning fuel to make fuel, needing sunlight in the process...
And they're doing it at low pH. This is well known to facilitate hydrogen evolution, but only makes things more difficult when they will have to get rid of the sacrificial reagent.
And finally:
" α‐FeOOH synthesized by coprecipitation method showed 25 times more active than TiO2 "
This is extremely misleading. I don't think it should have made it pas peer-review.
TiO2 alone is notoriously ineffective at performing hydrogen evolution, unless a cocatalyst is added to its surface. (Check out figure 12 in this paper: there's practically no hydrogen evolved at zero Pt loading)
So that's kind of like bragging you defeated a Ferrari in a race, only omitting that the Ferrari didn't have wheels installed.
It's still an interesting paper in some regards. But the sensationalist claims made about it in the Popular Mechanics article should be taken with a grain of salt.
greypowerOz on March 8th, 2020 at 04:19 UTC »
.
so it's a more active catalyst? Does this increase mean MORE hydrogen? or Faster? or Longer? or? Am I missing something or is this just a crap / clickbait article?
EvoEpitaph on March 8th, 2020 at 03:41 UTC »
"specific kind of rust" gives me doubts over whether this can be scaled up though.