Use of solar energy to be key in creating efficient methods of hydrogen production
Hydrogen is being touted as one of the next generation low carbon fuels to replace fossil fuels and combat climate change. The future use of hydrogen as a fuel lies in the design of efficient electrocatalysts for facilitating electrochemical splitting of water to produce hydrogen.
The commercially used Platinum (Pt) / Carbon (C) catalysts are efficient but expensive and suffer from metal ion leaching or electrocatalyst corrosion when used for a long duration. MOFs and coordination polymers (COPs) are envisioned as the next generation catalysts.
Research conducted at the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, for tuning of Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based catalysts to prevent electrocatalyst corrosion has been published in the journal ‘ACS Applied Energy Materials’.
Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST said that developing efficient means of splitting water to produce hydrogen and obtaining the energy required for it from solar energy would be a significant part of the sustainable and green solutions for our energy needs.
