In fact, for a long time, there have been developments in the field of creating means for generating energy from water. In fact, everything sounds simple: you just need to break the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen in a water molecule and you will have access to an almost inexhaustible source of environmentally friendly fuel. In fact, most of these developments are extremely expensive and unprofitable both from an economic point of view and from the point of view of efficiency. However, a US research team recently unveiled a new, efficient way to make fuel from water.
The mechanism for separating molecules described above is based on a process called electrolysis, and the substances that are used for this, respectively, are electrolyzers. The most efficient electrolyzers are made using corrosive acids and electrodes to trigger the reaction. In this case, the latter are based on oxides of iridium or ruthenium, as the most effective. The only problem is that iridium is very stable, but at the same time extremely expensive, and ruthenium, although it “takes second place”, is far from being a leader in terms of efficiency.
Some of the main participants in the study are Dr. Hai Kim, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering Hong Yang and graduate student Pei-Chie Shi.
According to Phys.org, a group of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found a way out and decided to use not 1 oxide, but 2 at once, replacing iridium with yttrium. In the course of tests with various types of acids, it was found that during the reactions, the alloy of yttrium and ruthenium becomes less porous and acquires a new crystal structure. This new property makes it possible to break down water molecules at an extremely high rate. Several times faster than all existing analogues. According to lead author Hong Yang, Now the team of scientists continues experiments and plans to create a prototype of a working installation for splitting water to improve the stability and quality of the electrodes.
Vladimir Kuznetsov
