Clean energy plans, including the U.S. Infrastructure Investment Act’s “
Clean Hydrogen Road Map,”
are counting on hydrogen as a fuel of the future. But current hydrogen
separation technology is still
falling short
of efficiency and sustainability goals. As part of ongoing efforts to
develop materials that could
enable alternative energy sources, researchers in Drexel University’s College of Engineering have produced a
titanium oxide nanofilament material that can harness sunlight to unlock the
ubiquitous molecule’s potential as a fuel source.
The discovery offers an alternative to current methods that
generate greenhouse gas
and
require a great deal of energy. Photocatalysis, a process that can split hydrogen from water using only
sunlight, has been explored for several decades, but has remained a more
distant consideration because the catalyst materials enabling the process
can only survive it for a day or two, which limits its long-term efficiency
and, as a result, its commercial viability.
Drexel’s group, led by
College of Engineering
researchers
Michel Barsoum, PhD, and Hussein O. Badr, PhD, in collaboration with scientists from the
National Institute of Materials Physics in Bucharest, Romania, recently
reported its discovery of photocatalytic titanium oxide-based,
one-dimensional nanofilament material that can help sunlight glean hydrogen
from water for months at a time. Their article “Photo-stable, 1D-nanofilaments TiO2-based lepidocrocite for
photocatalytic hydrogen production in water-methanol mixtures,” published in the journal Matter,presents a sustainable and
affordable path for creating hydrogen fuel, according to the authors.
Read more in the Drexel newsroom.