A chance discovery may revolutionize hydrogen production
Using a molybdenum based catalyst, hydrogen bubbles are made cheaply and at room temperature. Credit: EPFL / Alain Herzog
Producing hydrogen in a sustainable way is a challenge and production cost is too high. A team led by EPFL Professor Xile Hu has discovered that a molybdenum based catalyst is produced at room temperature, inexpensive and efficient. The results of the research are published online in Chemical Science Thursday the 14th of April. An international patent based on this discovery has just been filled.
Existing in large quantities on Earth, water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. It can be broken down by applying an electrical current; this is the process known as electrolysis. To improve this particularly slow reaction, platinum is generally used as a catalyst. However, platinum is a particularly expensive material that has tripled in price over the last decade. Now EPFL scientists have shown that amorphous molybdenum sulphides, found abundantly, are efficient catalysts and hydrogen production cost can be significantly lowered.
Industrial prospects
The new catalysts exhibit many advantageous technical characteristics. They are stable and compatible with acidic, neutral or basic conditions in water. Also, the rate of the hydrogen production is faster than other catalysts of the same price. The discovery opens up some interesting possibilities for industrial applications such as in the area of solar energy storage.
It's only by chance that Daniel Merki, Stéphane Fierro, Heron Vrubel and Xile Hu made this discovery during an electrochemical experience. "It's a perfect illustration of the famous serendipity principle in fundamental research", as Xile Hu emphasizes: "Thanks to this unexpected result, we've revealed a unique phenomenon", he explains. "But we don't yet know exactly why the catalysts are so efficient."
The next stage is to create a prototype that can help to improve sunlight-driven hydrogen production. But a better understanding of the observed phenomenon is also required in order to optimize the catalysts.
More information: Daniel Merki, Stéphane Fierro, Heron Vrubel and Xile Hu, "Amorphous Molybdenum Sulfide Films as Catalysts for Electrochemical Hydrogen Production in Water," Chemical Science, 2011.
Provided by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
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Apr 14, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (2)
According to the patent office, you CANNOT patent a catalyst, because, "Anyone skilled in the art would think to use catalysts."
This was one of the key reasons the patent offices refused Rossi's "E-cat".
Apr 14, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (2)
Apr 14, 2011
Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
http://www.scienc...1042.htm
Actually, they're both based on the same mechanism: the compound, which undergoes an easy photoreduction is able to reduce hydrogen from watter in subsequent step and to restore its original oxidized form.
The cobalt III or molybdenum IV oxides are both known with their photoreduction and cobalt II or molybdenum III oxides are known for their ability to evolve hydrogen from water. Actually, we could propose many of such systems with different stability and efficiency.
But we shouldn't forget the twenty years old cold fusion findings.
http://www.lenr-c...xces.pdf
Apr 14, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
It would be interesting if they could store the hydrogen in liquid and use it in existing gasoline engines. I recall reading something about storing hydrogen in buckyballs a while back.
Apr 14, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
Generally in relationship to solar electric sites, excess electricity made during the daylight hours is used to make clean-burning Hydrogen (via electrolysis) which is stored on-site. This is then used (burned) in a conventional type steam generator also on-site. This way electricity production can be 24/7, both day and night with the sun being your original source of energy. It seems to be a nice marriage.
Apr 14, 2011
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Yawning.
Build a 1000 MW fission plant and flash sea water, easy peasy japaneesy.
Build 100 1000 MW fission plants and North America could tell the Mideast to drink their oil.
Apr 14, 2011
Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
One also has to wonder, what North America's reaction would be to places like Iran, Afghanistan, or Libya building 1000 MW fission plants... Or, how about Mexico building a few of those right along the U.S. border?
Apr 15, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
Nucular power plants currently just cost too much to make relative to the power they generate. That is a much bigger problem that the very small amount of high level waste generated by them. I don't think people really understand how much energy there is in uranium. The entire amount of high level waste for a power plant that runs uninterrupted for an entire year would fit in a single 18 wheeler.
But an entirely new and MUCH less expensive way to construct these things will have to be found. Currently the economics are just unsustainable.
Apr 15, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
"Very small"!?
That comes to several thousand cubic feet of ultra-poisonous waste with half-lives many times longer than recorded history, man! The stuff's so dense the weight would ruin a single semi-trailer and you'd pay a fortune in fines if you tried to drive it anywhere.
Forget it. You'll need two or three trucks, I'm sure!
Apr 15, 2011
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
Apr 15, 2011
Rank: not rated yet
USians don't seem to have much problem with dumping hundreds of tons of "depleted uranium" on Iraqis but that cannot be done to waste from power generation?
Always seems to be unlimited funds available for annihilating people but it's always scarce to help them
Apr 15, 2011
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Apr 18, 2011
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Apr 23, 2011
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