Hydrogen from Acidic Water: … Potential Low Cost Alternative to Platinum for Splitting Water

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/02/09/hydrogen-from-acidic-water/

[font face=Times,Times New Roman,Serif][font size=5]Hydrogen from Acidic Water:[/font]
[font size=4]Berkeley Lab Researchers Develop a Potential Low Cost Alternative to Platinum for Splitting Water[/font]

February 09, 2012
Lynn Yarris [phone] [e-mail]

[font size=3]A technique for creating a new molecule that structurally and chemically replicates the active part of the widely used industrial catalyst molybdenite has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This technique holds promise for the creation of catalytic materials that can serve as effective low-cost alternatives to platinum for generating hydrogen gas from water that is acidic.

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“Using molecular chemistry, we’ve been able to capture the functional essence of molybdenite and synthesize the smallest possible unit of its proposed catalytic active site,” says Chang, who is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). “It should now be possible to design new catalysts that have a high density of active sites so we get the same catalytic activity with much less material.”

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Chang, Long and their research team met this challenge using a pentapyridyl ligand known as PY5Me[font size=1]₂[/font] to create a molybdenum disulfide molecule that, while not found in nature, is stable and structurally identical to the proposed triangular edge sites of molybdenite. It was shown that these synthesized molecules can form a layer of material that is analogous to constructing a sulfide edge of molybdenite.

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In 2010, Chang and Long and Hemamala Karunadasa, who is the lead author on this new Science paper, used the PY5Me[font size=1]₂[/font] ligand to create a molybdenum-oxo complex that can effectively and efficiently catalyze the generation of hydrogen from neutral buffered water or even sea water. Molybdenite complexes synthesized from this new molecular analog can just as effectively and efficiently catalyze hydrogen gas from acidic water.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1215868

[Jackpine Radical]

1. And the neatest thing about H2 is that all you get

when you burn it is water. No CO2.

H2 fuel cells could answer a lot of needs in alternative energy.