Affordable, easily produced catalyst fuels a new process that could revolutionize off-grid energy solutions. The University of Alberta researchers have developed a new catalyst that could revolutionize how we produce hydrogen and purify water. When placed in any water and provided with a small amount of energy, the catalyst produces hydrogen that can be fed into a fuel cell to generate electricity and distilled water that is safe to drink.
The catalyst was discovered almost entirely by chance when Robin Hamilton created an electrode for an undergraduate student working on a waste biomass upcycling project. He mixed up a combination of powders and allowed them to sit overnight in water, intending to finish the cell the following day. When he returned in the morning, the mixture was bubbling — an extremely unexpected reaction.
“It ends up being that they interact when you mix these two things. They work together, and hydrogen comes off. It floored us,” says Hamilton, a senior research associate in the Department of Chemistry.
Hamilton consulted chemistry professors Jeff Stryker and Jonathan Veinot, sharing the unexpected discovery and drawing on their respective expertise. The team quickly realized they had something remarkable on their hands — the specific combination of powders could serve as a new type of catalyst.
The catalyst they created is made with material that is non-toxic and plentiful. It’s easy and inexpensive to produce, making it an affordable and accessible alternative to current catalysts on the market, which require expensive materials and limited supply.
Their catalyst can also be used with any water. This factor gives it an edge over current hydrogen generation methods, such as water electrolysis.
“There’s a scarcity of potable water. That’s the biggest problem with water electrolysis to generate hydrogen — you must use clean water,” says Hamilton. “With this, you don’t. We take something dirty that you can’t drink and generate hydrogen and electricity in a fuel cell. And it spits out water you can drink.”
“You could turn oil sands tailings ponds into usable fuel while purifying the water. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not,” adds Veinot.
Produce hydrogen and purify water better than electrolysis
In addition to the catalyst being a marked improvement on the current catalysts available, it also transforms an energy-intensive process into something that can be achieved with far lower temperatures and less energy input.
The new catalyst-driven process produces less oxygen, making it less volatile than current methods. As Hamilton explains, when using a hydrogen fuel cell, water electrolysis is the most common way to generate hydrogen. This process splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, separates them, and then recombines them in the fuel cell to generate electricity.
“You mix hydrogen and oxygen and reach certain concentrations. That’s an explosive mixture. So you have to separate them to be able to use them safely. Our method sequesters the oxygen without these expensive membrane separators that are normally used. We can generate the hydrogen and have it go directly into the fuel cell. You don’t have to separate it,” says Hamilton.
“Think about having your garden hose providing you with the water that can be converted basically on demand to the fuel you want. It takes away transport, it takes away storage, it takes away negative explosive possibilities,” adds Veinot.
Future of the hydrogen research
The researchers are initially looking to craft off-grid devices that could help remote communities or aid in disaster relief when access to natural gas and potable water is an issue. They’re envisioning an all-in-one system that is relatively compact and easy to use — “kind of like a SodaStream, but instead of squirting out CO2 to get your fizzy drink, it’s off-gassing hydrogen that goes into your fuel cell to generate your power,” says Hamilton.
“Off-grid solutions are the initial target because that’s where we can make the most impact.”
Applied Quantum Materials, a company co-founded by Veinot, is incubating Dark Matter Materials. It is a new company co-founded by Stryker and Hamilton, to commercialize the new catalyst and method. Dark Matter Materials has already received interest from the local energy and agricultural sector and several multinational companies based in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
“We’re in a unique circumstance in Alberta in that Edmonton will be a hydrogen hub. The U of A has a history in energy involvement, and the chemistry department has a history of involvement with energy concerning the oilsands,” says Veinot. “We have a pivotal opportunity to push this to the next level.”
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