Progress in Hydrogen Production from Cobalt-Tungsten Alloy

       

According to foreign media reports, the use of electrolyzed water to produce hydrogen is the easiest way to create clean and renewable energy. A team led by Professor José Ramón-Galán-Mascarós, composed of URV of Spain and ICIQ of Spain, recently designed a new catalyst that can reduce electrolysis The cost of hydrogen production. This new catalyst can effectively reduce the amount of energy required to break the bond, speed up the reaction, and reduce energy waste.

Chemists from ICIQ and URV have discovered a compound made of cobalt and tungsten, called a polyoxometallate, that can catalyze water splitting better than iridium. The first author, ICIQ postdoctoral fellow Marta Blasco-Ahicart, explains that polyoxometallates are nanomolecular oxides that combine the best of two properties of electrolyzed water catalysts: oxide activity and molecular versatility. Polyoxometalates are less expensive than iridium and allow working in acidic media. In the past, efficient electrolyzed water catalysts often had the disadvantage of being consumed by acids.

In addition, the researchers put forward additional findings in their paper that can greatly improve the performance of a catalyst if it is attached to a hydrophobic material. The addition of a hydrophobic material allows the electrolysis in the reactor to proceed faster and also increases the life of the catalyst. The new method not only improves the performance of the new cobalt tungsten polyoxometallates, but may also introduce a large number of different catalytic systems.