Researchers at the University of Adelaide have officially found a way to split natural seawater into "Green Hydrogen".
What is Green Hydrogen?
Green hydrogen is hydrogen that is generated more sustainably, through renewable energy or small amounts of carbon power. This can benefit society as it significantly lowers carbon emissions relative to the more prevalent hydrogen used today. A breakthrough in green hydrogen can theoretically be revolutionary in terms of the environment, making it very important.
Revolutionary Discovery
Researchers at the university have been able to split seawater into oxygen and hydrogen with 100% efficiency using electrolysis. In short, electrolysis is a process by which an electric current is passed through something to produce a chemical change. In this case, that chemical change would be decomposition, breaking molecules down to separate out the oxygen and hydrogen.
According to Professor Shizhang Qiao, this process was done by using a cheap catalyst (a substance that speeds up chemical reactions) in an electrolyzer to achieve this result.
"We used seawater as a feedstock without the need for any pre-treatment processes like reverse osmosis desolation, purification, or alkalization," said Associate Professor Zheng. This indicates that this process is actually quite efficient, needing no pre-treatment processes.
What does this mean for us?
Considering how water is considered infinite, attaining hydrogen this way would be quite sustainable. Hydrogen is quite prevalent in our daily lives as we need it for electricity, power, heat etc. Considering how often hydrogen is utilized, it would be ideal to switch to something more sustainable. It would be costly but in the grand scheme of things, it would be beneficial in many aspects!
By: Samiha Ahsan
Citations:
University of Adelaide. "Seawater split to produce 'green' hydrogen." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 February 2023. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230201084357.htm>.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "electrolysis". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 Jan. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/science/electrolysis. Accessed 9 February 2023.
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