We have spoken before about the prospects for using hydrogen as a clean auto fuel as well as an energy storage medium. Most hydrogen is produced using the steam methane reforming process, which requires natural gas, uses lots of energy, and produces carbon dioxide as a waste product. Hydrogen made this way is not really a green fuel.
Far more desirable is to produce hydrogen from water using electrolysis, which uses an electrical current to separate the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen atoms in water. The process requires metal catalysts to reduce the amount of energy needed for the process and the best catalyst around is platinum, which makes the process too expensive for large-scale use.
Recently, a collaboration between the University of Delaware and Columbia University has discovered a potentially game-changing alternative: a unique combination of copper and titanium that imitates the behavior of a platinum catalyst. The unique structure makes use of nanotechnology to provide porosity that maximizes the number of active sites where the reaction can take place.
The new catalyst is made from two cheap and abundant elements, but still provides activity that is comparable to that of platinum. If the new material is proven to work reliably and can be produced in quantity, it represents a tremendous opportunity to replace expensive precious metal catalysts and make electrolysis an economically viable process. Hydrogen is potentially the clean fuel for the future, but it is critically important to develop a clean and economic process for making it.
**********
.
Web Links
Inexpensive, efficient bi-metallic electrocatalysts may open floodgates for hydrogen fuel
Photo, posted July 19, 2012, courtesy of the Official U.S. Navy Page via Flickr.
.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.