A power outage in the lab reveals how to improve hydrogen production

A research team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) purely by chance, he made a scientific discovery that could revolutionize the way water molecules break down to produce hydrogen gas.It is a very important element for many industrial processes and a candidate to be the fuel of the future.

Associate Professor Xue Jun Min from NUS, Dr. Wang Xiaopeng and Dr. The team, led by Vincent Lee Wee Siang, discovered that light can trigger a new process in a catalytic material commonly used in water electrolysis, thereby breaking down water. turns into hydrogen and oxygen. The result of such a process is a more energy efficient method of obtaining hydrogen.

“We discovered that The redox center for the electrocatalytic reaction changes between metal and oxygen when activated by light.Associate Professor Xue explained: “This greatly improves the efficiency of water electrolysis.”

The new finding could open up more effective and efficient ways to produce hydrogen and make this clean fuel source available to more people and industries.

an accidental discovery

Under normal circumstances, Xue Jun and her team might not have made such a promising discovery. As sometimes happens in science, it was an unforeseen event that led to this discovery. Researchers were able to observe something unknown to the scientific community by accidentally turning on the ceiling lights in their lab almost three years ago.

The ceiling lights in the research lab where this team of scientists worked were usually on 24 hours a day. But in 2019, the lights went out due to a nightly power outage. When the researchers returned the next day, the performance of a nickel oxyhydroxide-based material The water electrolysis experiment, which continued in the dark, was greatly slowed down.

“No one had noticed this drop in performance before because no one had done this experiment in the dark before,” Jun said. “Furthermore, the scientific literature says such material should not be light sensitive, so, light should have no effect on its properties“. But, as it turned out, it is not so.

The electrocatalytic mechanism in water electrolysis is a well-known topic, and nickel-based material is a very common catalytic material. So, to confirm that they had discovered something really important and new, Jun and his team began multiple iterative experiments to make sure their findings were consistent.

Three years later, they were able to share their findings publicly in an article published in the journal. Nature.

Next steps

After this discovery, The team is now working on the design of a new way to improve industrial processes to produce hydrogen. Xue Jun suggests making the water-containing cells transparent so that the light can penetrate. in the process of splitting water.

“This should require less energy in the electrolysis process and should be much easier in natural light,” said the professor. “More hydrogen can be produced in less time, consuming less energy.”

This element of nature has many industrial applications that are often unknown to the public. For example, food companies use hydrogen gas to convert unsaturated fats and oils to saturated, which gives us margarine and butter. Hydrogen is also used to weld metals as it can produce a high temperature of 4,000 degrees C. And the oil industry uses the gas to remove the sulfur content from the oil.

Also, hydrogen could potentially be used as a fuel. Long considered a sustainable fuel, produces no emissionsSince it does not need to be burned, it makes it a cleaner and more ecological fuel source, especially if it is produced with renewable energies. It’s also easier to store, making it more reliable than solar cells.

“Only through new knowledge can we gradually improve society,” said Jun, pleased with his finding.

Reference article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05296-7

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