New Magic of Photocatalysis Turns Seawater into Fuel (1)

How to extract fuel from water? Now a technology is known for electrolysis of water reverse reaction, hydrogen and oxygen are supplied to the cathode and the anode, cathode and hydrogen diffusion through the reaction of the electrolyte, releasing electrons through the external load to the anode, the principle of this technique is widely used in hydrogen fuel cell.

With the increasingly severe environmental pollution, more and more people began to try to obtain clean energy program to replace the traditional coal and fossil fuels, from the state recently issued new energy vehicle replacement plan and general secretary Xi Jinping in the nineteen report mentioned several times in the environmental protection policy, the future China will spare no effort to restore the blue green water hard, environmentally friendly materials market potential immeasurable.

There have been many reports on tungsten catalysts in the China Tungsten Online News. The most important one is the hydrogen energy car. Compared to lithium-battery vehicles, using hydrogen fuel cells as a harmful component of automotive power pollution-free environment is a veritable "green fuel" vehicle. However, the cost of hydrogen powered vehicles still has bottlenecks. Currently, the process of hydrogen production is very expensive, and there is a lack of existing infrastructure to support it, but this is only a matter of time.

Recently, there have been reports from the US media that the scientific team has made a major breakthrough in the process of hydrogen production from water. They have successfully separated hydrogen from seawater, and the cost of hydrogen production has been greatly reduced through technological improvements. What exactly is the "new magic"?

At present, hydrogen production is not only inefficient and expensive, but also needs to use non renewable natural gas (fuel), but the emergence of nanotechnology is a new creation method for hydrogen production technology. Recently, the scientific team of University of Florida (UCF) has developed a breakthrough hybrid nano material, which can make use of the existing green energy, and the power of solar energy turns seawater into hydrogen fuel.

The technical principle that scientists say is our common domestic photocatalysis technology, which is often used to treat waste water. The core of photocatalysis is the photocatalyst. Titanium, tungsten, and bismuth are commonly used photocatalytic materials, but this time American scientists used them to make energy.

The division of solar hydrogen is a subject for many researchers for many years. According to Yang, a Chinese scientist, "the team has opened up new areas of technology to decompose the real water. It is not the pure water of the laboratory, but the sea water that accounts for 70% of the total surface area of the earth.”

In order to produce hydrogen fuel, scientists need a kind of photocatalyst, which can react in the sunlight. But considering the corrosiveness and difficulty of seawater, Yang needs a unique and durable photocatalyst, which is the key to the success of hydrogen production. What material will it be?

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Read more: New Magic of Photocatalysis Turns Seawater into Fuel (2)

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