A catalyst to produce hydrogen using sunlight
on July 19, 2013
Researchers at the Institute of chemical technology (Joint Center of the Superior Council of scientific investigations and the Polytechnic University of Valencia), have developed a highly efficient catalyst for production of hydrogen from water and ambient carbon monoxide. New development only uses the energy from sunlight. The work has been published in the magazine 'Energy & Environmental Science of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom.
Hydrogen has been proposed as an alternative to the use of fossil fuels and renewable energy storage system. Currently, occurs industrially by the reformed with steam from hydrocarbons and, in particular, natural gas."This process requires high temperatures to run, since it consists in exposing the natural gas with water vapor at temperatures in lathe to 350 ° C and at a given pressure. Then produces an endothermic reaction called water gas shift and the result is to obtain hydrogen, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide,"explains the researcher of theCSIC Avelino Corma. Researchers have used gold as photocatalysts nanoparticles to decompose water into hydrogen using carbon as a reducing agent monoxide. This photocatalytic process can be performed using sunlight and also using simulated sunlight, as well as the light of a device focused on the range of the 450 nm LED, which indicates that ultraviolet light also promotes the reaction,"adds Hermenegildo García, Professor of the Polytechnic University of Valencia. The environmental impact of the production of hydrogen for use as fuel depends on the power source to obtain. "Unlike other industrial processes to produce hydrogen by endothermic reactions at high temperatures, our technical photocatalytic using gold nanoparticles is carried out at room temperature without any other requirement than the sunlight".
