New material produces cheap hydrogen
By Idha Valeur
Producing hydrogen for storage of renewable energy could become cheaper and more efficient with a new material discovered by chemistry researchers at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia.
According to Professor Anthony O’Mullane, professor at QUT’s Science and Engineering Faculty, the new composite material developed in collaboration with PhD student Ummul Sultana, enables electrochemical water to split into hydrogen and oxygen using cheap and easily available elements as catalysts. Instead of using precious and expensive metals, like iridium oxide, ruthenium oxide and platinum the research team found that they could use alternatives such as cobalt and nickel oxide and only a fraction of gold nanoparticles – to save a few pennies and the environment. These two elements make for a stable bi-functional catalyst that split water and produce hydrogen with no emissions.
‘From an industry point of view, it makes a lot of sense to use one catalyst material instead of two different catalysts to produce hydrogen from water,’ O’Mullane said.
The hydrogen could be used in fuel cells, according to O’Mullane.
O’Mullane, said, ‘Fuel cells are a mature technology, already being rolled out in many makes of vehicle. They use hydrogen and oxygen as fuels to generate electricity – essentially the opposite of water splitting.
‘With a lot of cheaply 'made' hydrogen we can feed fuel cell-generated electricity back into the grid when required during peak demand or power our transportation system and the only thing emitted is water.’
The paper, Gold Doping in a Layered Co-Ni Hydroxide System via Galvanic Replacement for Overall Electrochemicals was published in Advanced Functional Materials.
The paper can be found here: bit.ly/2KHKZ30
