Find an extremely effective, surprisingly cheap hydrogen extraction method

Scientists have found a new way to separate cheap and extremely efficient hydrogen and oxygen from water.

This means that in the future, we can create an abundance of hydrogen fuel .

Hydrogen is an excellent source of clean energy, but the challenge for researchers is how to create it both effectively and at an affordable price.

A recently developed catalyst can solve both of these problems. Hydrogen fuel is separated from quality water and the cost of implementation is lower than the amount spent for this process ever. In particular, separation can be carried out continuously for 20 hours.

According to researchers at the University of Houston (USA), this special catalyst outperforms old materials in durability, energy storage capacity, as well as cost and efficiency.

Paul CW Chu, a member of the research team, said: " Hydrogen is the cleanest primary energy source on Earth that we are fortunate to possess. Water can be the most abundant source of hydrogen if we can. separating hydrogen from strongly binding to oxygen in water, this extraction is only done by using catalysts ".

To separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, two reactions are required - one for each element. Previously, the team had problems obtaining an efficient catalyst for part of the oxygen of the equation, but now everything has been solved.

The catalyst is made up of an iron metaphtphate and a platform containing nickel-conducting foam. The two materials are cheap and easy to find, so this combination will bring about a perfect result, the team said.

The new catalyst is the future of clean fuels.(Photo: Shutterstock).

The catalyst also showed impressive durability in the tests. The new catalyst can work for more than 20 hours and 10,000 cycles without any problems.

Using new methods means being able to produce hydrogen without accompanying 'obnoxious' by- products is carbon waste. This is what current production methods, such as vaporization of methane gas and coal gasification - cannot be avoided.

Currently, oxygen reactions are usually made only by catalysts such as iridium metal, platinum or ruthenium . 'noble' metals which are very expensive and hard to find. Experts say that the oxygen reaction has become a bottleneck for the whole process of creating it.

Nickel is plentiful, cheap, and easier to use. In another method of splitting water discovered last year, scientists found this metal. So, the team now has many avenues to explore the improvement in hydrogen production.

In fact, the separation is usually done by providing electric current or solar energy to start up. But since water only gets a small fraction of the light spectrum, the process begins by converting sunlight into energy, then using electricity to release hydrogen.

If scientists can fine tune this formula, eventually hydrogen can power everything from home to car. And this is a better option for the environment - far better than CO 2 fossil fuels. Hydrogen fuel produces water as a byproduct of combustion, both sustainable and non-polluting.

The good news is that if the water electrolyte path does not work, the researchers will find a way to get hydrogen from the biomass. The less heat we use and less energy to produce hydrogen, the better our planet will be. And when we're ready to use it, hydrogen is absolutely cleaner and greener than fossil fuels.

"We believe that this discovery is a big step in producing hydrogen in a practical and effective way by splitting water. It will contribute significantly to the efforts to minimize fossil fuel consumption '.

The whole study was published in PNAS.

Previously, there were many methods that could separate hydrogen from water. For example, a group of Japanese scientists developed a material that uses sunlight to break down water molecules into constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen. Or the Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has produced fuels that only use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

This method mimics natural photosynthesis in plants and stores energy in the form of chemical fuels for use on demand.