A new catapult will move seawater dewatering, hydrogen production closer to commercialization

Seawater makes up about 96% of all water on earth, making it a disgraceful resource to meet the world’s growing need for clean drinking water and carbon-free energy. And scientists already have the technical ability to both drain and separate seawater to produce hydrogen, which is needed as a source of clean energy.

But the existing methods require several steps performed at high temperatures over a long period of time to produce a catapult with the required efficiency. That requires a lot of energy and will increase the cost.

Researchers from the University of Houston have reported that a commercially available nickel foam contains an oxygen evolutionary catalyst that takes just minutes to grow at room temperature. Combined with the previously reported hydrogen evaporation catalyst, it can achieve the conventional density required industrially for seawater sludge at low voltage. The work is described in a paper published in Energy & Environmental Science.

Zhifeng Ren, director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH (TcSUH) and corresponding author for the paper, said that fast, low-cost production is critical to commercialization.

“Any discovery, any technological development, no matter how good, is the ultimate cost to play the most important role,” he said. “If the cost is too much, it won’t e marketing. In this paper, we found a way to reduce the cost so trade will be easier and more acceptable to customers. ”

Ren research group and others have previously reported on nickel-iron- (oxy) hydroxide fertilizer as a blower to sew seawater, but making the material required a lengthy process. produced at temperatures between 300 Celsius and 600 Celsius, or as high as 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. The high energy cost made it inconvenient for commercial use, and the high temperature reduced the structural and mechanical integrity of the nickel foam, making long-term stability a concern, said Ren, who is also the High- MD Anderson professor of physics at UH.

To address both cost and durability, the researchers found a process for applying nickel-iron- (oxy) hydroxide on nickel foam, coated with a small amount of sulfur to produce an effective catalyst at room temperature. the room within five minutes. Working at room temperature reduced the cost and improved mechanical stability, they said.

“To boost the hydrogen economy, it is essential to develop costly and abstract approaches to synthesize NiFe (oxy) based hydroxide catalysts for high-performance seawater electrolysis,” they wrote. this work, we developed a one-step surface engineering method to make self-supporting S / doped Ni / Fe (oxy) hydroxide catalysts from commercial Ni foam in 1 to 5 minutes at room temperature. ”

In addition to Ren, co-authors include first author Luo Yu and Libo Wu, Brian McElhenny, Shaowei Song, Dan Luo, Fanghao Zhang and Shuo Chen, all with UH Physics Department and TcSUH; and Ying Yu from the College of Physical Science and Technology at Normal Central China University.

Ren said one key approach of the researchers was the decision to use chemical reaction to produce the material you wanted, rather than the traditional energy-consuming focus on physical transformation.

“That brought us to the right structure, the right combination for the growing oxygen catalyst,” he said.

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