Hydrogen from sea water - it's an ideal fuel source - ecologically sound and abundant. However, extracting hydrogen from water takes so much electricity that it is not economical to produce. However, researchers at the University of Wollongong in Austrailia (UOW) have announced that they have developed a new polymer which can help catalyze reactions to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Researchers from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) at UOW created a new, thin flexible membrane that acts as a catalyst for the production of hydrogen and oxygen from water. This could help power hydrogen production for fuel cells and cars. Catalysts are not consumed in chemical reactions, but act to lower the energy required for reactions to occur. The membrane consists of a conductive plastic sheet, covered with a synthetic form of chlorophyll.
Exposed to light, the membrane lowers the amount of energy required for the oxidation of water. This is the process by which oxygen is generated when two water molecules (H2O) are converted into a molecule of oxygen gas (O2) and four loose protons and electrons. These later combine into two molecules of hydrogen gas (H2) in a process called reduction.
The energy required to split water molecules without the catalyst produces poisonous chlorine gas when seawater is used as a raw material. No chlorine could be observed during the oxidation process using the new membrane.
"The system we designed, including the materials, gives us the opportunity to design various devices and applications using sea water as a water-splitting source. The flexible nature of the material also provides the possibility to build portable hydrogen-producing devices," Jun Chen, lead author of the study, said.
Using the new system, a little under 1 1/3 gallons of seawater each day could produce enough energy to power a typical home and electric car. The goal of the group at ACES is to eventually construct a leaf-like device that would produce clean hydrogen for power production from seawater and sunlight.
"In today's world, the discovery of high performance materials is not enough. This must be coupled with innovative fabrication to provide practical high-performance devices, and this work is an excellent example of that," Gordon Wallace, ACES Executive Research Director, said.
An article about the new membrane was published in the journal Chemical Science.
