Scientists find material for carbon-free hydrogen production

South Korean researchers from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and Seoul National University (SNU) have discovered a new oxide material, capable of produce large amounts of pure hydrogen, using only heat, without additional carbon emissions.

The team, led by prof. Hengyu Jin and dr. Dongyu Li of POSTECH, in collaboration with prof. In-Ho Jeong and dr. Junheon Nam of Seoul National University, determined (MgMnCo)_0.65Fe_0.35O_y as a highly efficient oxide, that generates hydrogen. By combining thermodynamic databases with accelerated simulations, they were able to analyze more than 1,000 states of materials in just 24 hours — more than 7,000 times faster than traditional approaches, that typically required at least a full week to study a single state.

Based on the results of the computer selection of promising candidates and experimental verification, it was confirmed, that the innovative material achieves record-breaking performance in hydrogen generation and thermal conversion efficiency. In addition to hydrogen production, this technology can be used for in other industries that require efficient redox materials, such as methane reforming to extract hydrogen from natural gas, battery recycling to recover valuable metals, and metal oxidation-reduction processes in steelmaking. 

Thermodynamic analysis based on CALPHAD — of a highly efficient system for two-stage thermochemical splitting of water under conditions of a mitigated redox reaction and spectroscopic analysis of the electronic structure show, that the excellent redox characteristics of this material are due to the simultaneous participation of Fe and Mn cations. This double active feature was discovered for the first time in ferrite cycles, which opens up significant opportunities for studying new multicationic ferrite systems in a related field of research.

The results of the study were published in the journal Advanced Science

Source: TechXplore