AsianScientist (Jan. 26, 2018) – In a study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a research group in Japan has developed a catalytic system that efficiently splits water using energy from sunlight, yielding hydrogen fuel.
Hydrogen as a fuel source, rather than hydrocarbons like oil and coal, offers many benefits. Burning hydrogen produces harmless water, thus potentially eliminating carbon dioxide emissions and the associated environmental burden.
To achieve a hydrogen economy, hydrogen must be produced cheaply. Using catalysts to split water is the ideal way to generate hydrogen, but doing so usually requires an energy input from other chemicals, electricity, or a portion of sunlight which has high enough energy.
In this study, a team of scientists led by Dr. Zhu Mingshan of Osaka University, Japan, combined nanostructured black phosphorus and bismuth vanadate to make use of a wide range of the solar spectrum in the generation of hydrogen fuel. Black phosphorus has a flat, two-dimensional structure similar to that of graphene and strongly absorbs light across the whole of the visible spectrum. Meanwhile, bismuth vanadate is a well-known water oxidation catalyst.
In the same way that plants shuttle electrons between different structures in natural photosynthesis to split water and make oxygen, the two components of this new catalyst could rapidly transfer electrons excited by sunlight. The amounts of black phosphorus and bismuth vanadate was also optimized in the catalyst, leading to the production of hydrogen and oxygen gases in an ideal 2:1 ratio.
“The realization of hydrogen production powered by sunlight is the foundation of a hydrogen-oriented society,” said coauthor Professor Tetsuro Majima of Osaka University. “Our contribution overcomes a significant hurdle, but much work remains to be done to make hydrogen a practical fuel source in the future.”
The article can be found at: Zhu et al. (2018) Z-Scheme Photocatalytic Water Splitting on a 2D Heterostructure of Black Phosphorus/Bismuth Vanadate Using Visible Light.
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Source: Osaka University; Photo: Pexels.
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